,«Lr 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


THE 


HISTOBY  OF  ENGLAND 


FROM 


ACCESSION  OF  JAMES  H. 


BY 

THOMAS   BABINGTON  MACAULAY. 


VOL.   III. 


PHILADELPHIA 

PORTER    &    COATES 


DA 


M  •// 


K3 


CHAPTER  XI. 

PAGE 

William  and  Mary  proclaimed  in  London 13 

Rejoicings  throughout  England  ;  Rejoicings  in  Holland 14 

Discontent  of  the  Clergy  and  of  the  Army 15 

Reaction  of  Public  Feeling 17 

Temper  of  the  Tories 18 

Temper  of  the  Whigs 21 

Ministerial  Arrangements 23 

William  his  own  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs 24 

Danby 25 

Halifax 26 

Nottingham 27 

Shrewsbury  ;  The  Board  of  Admiralty 29 

The  Board  of  Treasury  ;  The  Great  Seal 30 

The  Judges 31 

The  Household 32 

Subordinate  Appointments .' 34 

The  Convention  turned  into  a  Parliament 35 

The  Members  of  the  Two  Houses  required  to  take  the  Oaths  39 

Questions  relating  to  the  Revenue 41 

Abolition  of  the  Hearth  Money 43 

Repayment  of  the  Expenses  of  the  United  Provinces  ;  Mutiny 

at  Ipswich * 45 

The  first  Mutiny  Bill 49 

Suspension  of  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act 53 

Unpopularity  of  William 54 

Popularity  of  Mary 57 

The  Court  removed  from  Whitehall  to  Hampton  Court 60 

VOL.  III. 


6  CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

The  Court  at  Kensington 62 

William's  foreign  Favourites 63 

General  Maladministration 65 

Dissensions  among  Men  in  Office i . .  .  67 

Department  of  Foreign  Affairs .  71 

Religious  Disputes 72 

The  High  Church  Party * 74 

The  Low  Church  Party 75 

William's    Views   concerning  Ecclesiastical   Polity ;  Burnet, 

Bishop  of  Salisbury 77 

Nottingham's  Views  concerning  Ecclesiastical  Polity 81 

The  Toleration  Bill 83 

The  Comprehension  Bill 90 

The  Bill  for  settling  the  Oaths  of  Allegiance  and  Supremacy. .  99 

The  Bill  for  settling  the  Coronation  Oath 113 

The  Coronation 115 

Promotions 118 

The  Coalition  against  France  ;  The  Devastation  of  the  Pala- 
tinate   119 

War  declared  against  France 123 

CHAPTER  XH. 

State  of  Ireland  at  the  Time  of  the  Revolution  ;  The  Civil 

Power  in  the  hands  of  the  Roman  Catholics 125 

The  Military  Power  in  the  hands  of  the  Roman  Catholics.  . . .  128 

Mutual  Enmity  between  the  Englishry  and  the  Irishry 128 

Panic  among  the  Englishry 129 

History  of  the  Town  of  Keiimare 130 

Enniskillen '. 134 

Londonderry ' 135 

Closing  of  the  Gates  of  Londonderry 137 

Mountjoy  sent  to  pacify  Ulster 140 

William  opens  a  Negotiation  with  Tyrconnel 142 

The  Temples  consulted 143 

Richard  Hamilton  sent  to  Ireland  on  his  Parole 144 

Tyrconnel  sends  Mountjoy  and  Rice  to  France;  Tyrconnel  calls 

the  Irish  People  to  arms 146 

Devastation  of  the  Country ". 147 

The  Protestants  in  the  South  unable  to  resist 152 


CONTENTS  7 

PAGE. 

Enniskillen   and  Londonderry  hold  out ;  Richard  Hamilton 

marches  into  Ulster  with  an  Army 153 

James  determines  to  go  to  Ireland 155 

Assistance  furnished  by  Lewis  to  James 156 

Choice  of  a  French  Ambassador  to  accompany  James ;  The 

Count  of  Avaux 158 

James  lands  at  Kinsale  ;  James  enters  Cork 160 

Journey  of  James  from  Cork  to  Dublin 162 

Discontent  in  England 165 

Factions  at  Dublin  Castle 166 

James  determines  to  go  to  Ulster ;  Journey  of  James  to  Ulster  172 

The  Fall  of  Londonderry  expected 176 

Succours  arrive  from  England  ;  Treachery  of  Lundy ;  The 

Inhabitants  of  Londonderry  resolve  to  defend  themselves. . .  177 

Their  Character 179 

Londonderry  besieged 184 

The  Siege  turned  into  a  Blockade 185 

Naval  Skirmish  in  Bantry  Bay 187 

A  Parliament  summoned  by  James  sits  at  Dublin 188 

A  Toleration  Act  passed 193 

Acts  passed  for  the  Confiscation  of  the  Property  of  Protestants  194 

Issue  of  Base  Money 198 

The  Great  Act  of  Attainder 200 

James  prorogues  his  Parliament ' 203 

Persecution  of  the  Protestants  in  Ireland 204 

Effect  produced  in  England  by  the  News  from  Ireland 206 

Actions  of  the  Enniskilleners 209 

Distress  of  Londonderry 210 

Expedition  under  Kirke  arrives  in  Lough  Foyle  ;  Cruelty  of 

Rosen 211 

The  Famine  in  Londonderry  extreme 214 

Attack  on  the  Boom 217 

The  Siege  of  Londonderry  raised 219 

Operations  against  the  Enniskilleners 222 

Battle  of  Newton  Butler 224 

Consternation  of  the  Irish 225 

CHAPTER  XHI. 

The  Revolution  more  violent  in  Scotland  than  in  England 227 

Election  for  the  Convention  ;  Rabbling  of  the  Episcopal  Clergy  229 


8  •  CONTENTS. 

PAGE, 

State  of  Edinburgh  . .  232 

The  Question  of  an  Union  between  England  and  Scotland 

raised 233 

Wish  of  the  English  Low  Churchmen  to  preserve  Episcopacy 

in  Scotland 237 

Opinions  of  William  about  Church  Government  in  Scotland. .  238 

Comparative  Strength  of  Religious  Parties  in  Scotland 240 

Letter  from  William  to  the  Scotch  Convention  ;  William's 

Instructions  to  his  Agents  in  Scotland 241 

The  Dalrymples 242 

Melville 245 

James's  Agents  in  Scotland  :  Dundee ;  Balcarras 246 

Meeting  of  the  Convention 249 

Hamilton  elected  President 250 

Committee  of  Elections  ;  Edinburgh  Castle  summoned  251 

Dundee  threatened  by  the  Covenanters 252 

Letter  from  James  to  the  Convention 254 

Effect  of  James's  Letter 255 

Flight  of  Dundee 256 

Tumultuous  Sitting  of  the  Convention 257 

A  Committee  appointed  to  frame  a  Plan  of  Government 259 

Resolutions  proposed  by  the  Committee 261 

William  and  Mary  proclaimed  ;  The  Claim  of  Right;  Abolition 

of  Episcopacy 262 

Torture 264 

William  and  Mary  accept  the  Crown  of  Scotland 266 

Discontent  of  the  Covenanters 267 

Ministerial  Arrangements  in  Scotland  ;  Hamilton  ;  Crawford.  269 

The  Dalrymples  ;  Lockhart :  Montgomery  ;  Melville 270 

Carstairs ;  The  Club  formed  :  Annandale  ;  Ross 271 

Hume  ;  Fletcher  of  Saltoun 272 

War  breaks  out  in  the  Highlands  ;  State  of  the  Highlands .  . .  274 

Peculiar  Nature  of  Jacobitism  in  the  Highlands 285 

Jealousy  of  the  Ascendency  of  the  Campbells 288 

The  Stewarts  and  Macnaghtens  ;  The  Macleans 290 

The  Camerons ;  Lochiel 291 

The  Macdonalds 294 

Feud  between  the  Macdonalds  and  Mackintoshes;  Inverness..  294 

Inverness  threatened  by  Macdonald  of  Keppoch 296 

Dundee  appears  in  Keppoch's  Camp 227 


CONTENTS.  9 

PAGE. 

Insurrection  of  the  Clans  hostile  to  the  Campbells 300 

Tarbet's  Advice  to  the  Government 302 

Indecisive  Campaign  in  the  Highlands 303 

Military  Character  of  the  Highlanders 304 

Quarrels  in  the  Highland  Army 309 

Dundee  applies  to  James  for  assistance  ;  The  War  in  the 

Highlands  suspended 311 

Scruples  of  the  Covenanters  about  taking  Arms  for  King 

William 312 

The  Cameronian  Regiment  raised 313 

Edinburgh  Castle  surrenders 314 

Session  of  Parliament  at  Edinburgh  ;  Ascendency  of  the  Club  315 

Troubles  in  Athol 319 

The  war  breaks  out  again  in  the  Highlands 321 

Death  of  Dundee 328 

Retreat  of  Mackay 329 

Effect  of  the  battle  of  Killiecraukie  ;  The  Scottish  Parliament 

adjourned 331 

The  Highland  Army  reinforced 334 

Skirmish  at  Saint  Johnston's 338 

Disorders  in  the  Highland  Army 337 

Mackay's  Advice  disregarded  by  the  Scotch  Ministers ;  The 

Cameronians  stationed  at  Dunkeld 338 

The  Highlanders  attack  the  Cameronians  and  are  repulsed 339 

Dissolution  of  the  Highland  Army 341 

Intrigues  of  the  Club  ;  State  of  the  Lowlands  342 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

Disputes  in  the  English  Parliament ;  The  Attainder  of  Russell 

reversed 343 

Other  Attainders  reversed  ;  Case  of  Samuel  Johnson 346 

Case  of  Devonshire  ;  Case  of  Gates 347 

Bill  of  Rights 355 

Disputes  about  a  Bill  of  Indemnity 358 

Last  Days  of  Jeffreys 360 

The  Whigs  dissatisfied  with  the  King 364 

Intemperance  of  Howe  ;  Attack  on  Caermarthen 366 

Attack  on  Halifax 367 

/^Preparations  for  a  Campaign  in  Ireland 371 


10  CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

Schomberg  372 

Recess  of  the  Parliament ;  State  of  Ireland  ;  Advice  of  Avaux  374 

Dismission  of  Melfort  ;  Schomberg  lands  in  Ulster 378 

Carrickf ergus  taken  ;  Schomberg  advances  into  Leinster 379 

The   English   and   Irish    Armies   encamp  near   each   other  ; 

Schomberg  declines  a  Battle 381 

Frauds  of  the  English  Commissariat 382 

Conspiracy  among  the  French  Troops  in  the  English  Service  383 

Pestilence  in  the  English  Army 384 

The  English  and  Irish  Armies  go  into  Winter  Quarters 387 

Various  Opinions  about  Schomberg's  Conduct 388 

Maritime  Affairs 389 

Maladministration  of  Torrington 390 

Continental  Affairs 391 

Skirmish  at  Walcourt ;  Imputations  thrown  on  Marlborough .   393 

Pope  Innocent  XL  succeeded  by  Alexander  VIII 395 

The  High  Church  Clergy  divided  on  the  Subject  of  the  Oaths  393 

Arguments  for  taking  the  Oaths 397 

Arguments  against  taking  the  Oaths 400 

A  great  Majority  of  the  Clergy  take  the  Oaths 405 

The  Non jurors  :  Ken 407 

Leslie  ;  Sherlock 409 

Hickes 411 

Collier 412 

Dodwell /• 414 

Kettlewell;  Fitzwilliam  ;  General  Character  of  the  Nonjuring 

Clergy 416 

The  Plan  of  Comprehension  ;  Tillotson 420 

An  Ecclesiastical  Commission  issued 421 

Proceedings  of  the  Commission 423 

The  Convocation  of  the  Province  of  Canterbury  summoned  ; 

Temper  of  the  Clergy 427 

The  Clergy  ill-affected  towards  the  King 428 

The  Clergy  exasperated  against  the  Dissenters  by  the  Pro- 
ceedings of  the  Scotch  Presbyterians 431 

Constitution  of  the  Convocation 433 

Election  of  Members  of  Convocation 434 

Ecclesiastical  Preferments  bestowed 435 

Compton  discontented 437 

The  Convocation  meets 438 


CONTENTS.  11 

PAGE 

The  High  Churchmen  a  Majority  of  the  Lower  House  of  Con- 
vocation    439 

'  Difference  between  the  Two  Houses  of  Convocation 441 

The  Lower  House  of  Convocation  proves  unmanageable 442 

The  Convocation  prorogued 443 

CHAPTER  XV. 

The  Parliament  meets  ;  Retirement  of  Halifax 445 

Supplies  voted  ;  the  Bill  of  Rights  passed 446 

Enquiry  into  Xaval  Abuses 448 

Enquiry  into  the  Conduct  of  the  Irish  War 449 

JReception  of  Walker  in  England 451 

Edmund  Ludlow 453 

Violence  of  the  Whigs 456 

Impeachments 457 

Committee  of  Murder 458 

Malevolence  of  John  Hampden 459 

1690.  The  Corporation  Bill 462 

Debates  on  the  Indemnity  Bill 468 

Case  of  Sir  Robert  Sawyer 469 

The  King  purposes  to  retire  to  Holland 473 

He  is  induced  to  change  his  intention ;  the  Whigs  oppose  his 

going  to  Ireland ;  He  prorogues  the  Parliament 474 

Joy  of  the  Tories : 476 

Dissolution  and  General  Election 478 

Changes  in  the  Executive  Departments 480 

Caermarthen  then  Chief  Minister 481 

Sir  John  Lowther 483 

Rise  and  Progress  of  Parliamentary  Corruption  in  England.  ,  484 

Sir  John  Trevor 489 

Godolphin  retires 490 

Changes  at  the  Admiralty 491 

Changes  in  the  Commissions  of  Lieutenancy 492 

Temper  of  the  Whigs  ;  Dealings  of  some  Whigs  with  Saint 

Germains  ;  Shrewsbury  ;  Ferguson 494 

Hopes  of  the  Jacobites 496 

Meeting  of  the  New  Parliament  ;  Settlement  of  the  Revenue.  497 

Provision  for  the  Princess  of  Denmark 500 

Bill  declaring  the  Acts  of  the  preceding  Parliament  valid. . . .  507 


12  CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

Debate  on  the  Changes  in  the  Lieutenancy  of  London 508 

Abjuration  Bill 509 

Act  of  Grace 514 

The  Parliament  prorogued;  Preparations  for  the  First  War.   517 

Administration  of  James  at  Dublin 518 

An  Auxiliary  Force  sent  from  France  to  Ireland 520 

iDlan  of  the  English  Jacobites:    Clarendon,  Ailesbury,  Dart- 
mouth    523 

Penn 524 

Preston 525 

The  Jacobites  betrayed  by  Fuller 526 

Crone  arrested 527 

Difficulties  of  William 529 

Conduct  of  Shrewsbury 530 

The  Council  of  Nine 533 

Conduct  of  Clarendon  ;  Penn  held  to  bail 534 

Interview  between  William  and  Burnet  ;  William  sets  out  for 

Ireland 535 

Trial  of  Crone 536 

Danger  of  Invasion  and  Insurrection  ;  Tourville's  Fleet  in  the 

Channel 538 

Arrests  of  suspected  Persons 539 

Torrington  ordered  to  give  Battle  to  Tourville 540 

Battle  of  Beachy  Head 542 

Alarm  in  London  ;  Battle  of  Fleurus  ;  Spirit  of  the  Nation . .   543 
Conduct  of  Shrewsbury 546 


HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 


CHAPTER  XL 

THE  Revolution  had  been  accomplished.  The  decrees  of  the 
Convention  were  everywhere  received  with  submission.  London, 
true  during  fifty  eventful  years  to  the  cause  of  civil  freedom  and 
of  the  reformed  religion,  was  foremost  in  professing  loyalty  to 
the  new  Sovereigns.  Garter  King  at  Arms,  after  making  proc- 
lamation under  the  windows  of  Whitehall,  rode  in  state  along 
the  Strand  to  Temple  Bar.  He  was  followed  by  the  maces  of 
the  two  Houses,  by  the  two  Speakers,  Halifax  and  Powle,  and 
by  a  long  train  of  coaches  filled  with  noblemen  and  gentlemen. 
The  magistrates  of  the  City  threw  open  their  gates  and  joined 
the  procession.  Four  regiments  of  militia  lined  the  way  up 
Ludgate  Hill,  round  Saint  Paul's  Cathedral,  and  along  Cheap- 
side.  The  streets,  the  balconies,  and  the  very  housetops  were 
crowded  with  gazers.  All  the  steeples  from  the  Abbey  to  the 
Tower  sent  forth  a  joyous  din.  The  proclamation  was  repeated 
with  sound  of  trumpet,  in  front  of  the  Royal  Exchange,  amidst 
the  shouts  of  the  citizens. 

In  the  evening  every  window  from  Whitechapel  to  Pic- 
cadilly was  lighted  up.  The  state  rooms  of  the  palace  were 
thrown  open,  and  were  filled  by  a  gorgeous  company  of  courtiers 
desirous  to  kiss  the  hands  of  the  King  and  Queen.  The  Whigs 
assembled  there,"  flushed  with  victory  and  prosperity.  There  were 
among  them  some  who  might  be  pardoned  if  a  vindictive  feeling 
mingled  with  their  joy.  The  most  deeply  injured  of  all  who  had 
survived  the  evil  times  was  absent.  Lady  Russell,  while  her 
VOL.  III.— 1  13 


14  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

friends  were  crowding  the  galleries  of  "Whitehall,  remained  in 
her  retreat,  thinking  of  one  who,  if  he  had  been  still  living, 
would  have  held  no  undistinguished  place  in  the  ceremonies  of 
that  great  day.  But  her  daughter  who  had  a  few  months  be- 
fore become  the  wife  of  Lord  Cavendish,  was  presented  to  the 
royal  pair  by  his  mother  the  Countess  of  Devonshire.  A  letter 
is  still  extant  in  which  the  young  lady  described  with  great  vi- 
vacity the  roar  of  the  populace,  the  blaze  in  the  streets,  the 
throng  in  the  presence  chamber,  the  beauty  of  Mary,  and  the 
expression  which  ennobled  and  softened  the  harsh  features  of 
William.  But  the  most  interesting  passage  is  that  in  which  the 
orphan  girl  avowed  the  stern  delight  with  which  she  had  wit- 
nessed the  tardy  punishment  of  her  father's  murderer.* 

The  example  of  London  was  followed  by  the  provincial 
towns.  During  three  weeks  the  Gazettes  were  filled  with  ac- 
counts of  the  solemnities  by  which  the  public  joy  manifested 
itsslf,  cavalcades  of  gentlemen  and  yeomen,  processions  of 
Sheriffs  and  Bailiffs  in  scarlet  gowns,  musters  of  zealous  Pro- 
testants with  orange  flags  and  ribands,  salutes,  bonfires,  illumin- 
ations, music,  balls,  dinners,  gutters  running  with  ale,  and  con- 
duits spouting  claret,  f 

Still  more  cordial  was  the  rejoicing  among  the  Dutch,  when 
they  learned  that  the  first  minister  of  their  Commonwealth  had 
been  raised  to  a  throne.  On  the  very  day  of  his  accession  he 
had  written  to  assure  the  States  General  that  the  change  in  his 
situation  had  made  no  change  in  the  affection  which  he  bore  to 
his  native  land,  and  that  his  new  dignity  would,  he  hoped,  enable 
him  to  discharge  his  old  duties  more  efficiently  than  ever.  That 
oligarchical  party,  which  had  always  been  hostile  to  the  doc- 
trines of  Calvin  and  to  the  House  of  Orange,  muttered  faintly 
that  His  Majesty  ought  to  resign  the  Stadtholdership.  But  all 
such  mutterings  were  drowned  by  the  acclamations  of  a  people 

*  Letter  from  Lady  Cavendish  to  Sylvia.  Lady  Cavendish,  like  most  of  the 
clever  girls  of  that  generation,  had  Scudery's  romances  in  her  head.  She  is 
Dorinda:  her  correspondent,  supposed  to  be  her  cousin  Jane  Allington,  is 
Sylvia  :  William  is  Ormanzor,  and  Mary  Phenixana.  London  Gazette,  Feb.  14, 
1688-9  ;  Luttrell's  Diary. 

+  See  the  London  Gazettes  of  February  and  March  1688-9,  and  Luttrell's 
Diary. 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  15 

proud  of  the  genius  and  success  of  their  great  countryman.  A 
day  of  thanksgiving  was  appointed.  In  all  the  cities  of  the 
Seven  Provinces  the  public  joy  manifested  itself  by  festivities 
of  which  the  expense  was  chiefly  defrayed  by  voluntary  gifts. 
Every  class  assisted.  The  poorest  labourer  could  help  to  set  up 
an  arch  of  triumph,  or  to  bring  sedge  to  a  bonfire.  Even  the 
ruined  Huguenots  of  France  could  contribute  the  aid  of  their 
ingenuity.  One  art  which  they  had  carried  with  them  into  ban- 
ishment was  the  art  of  making  fireworks  ;  and  they  now,  in 
honor  of  the  victorious  champion  of  their  faith,  lighted  up  the 
canals  of  Amsterdam  with  showers  of  splendid  constellations.* 

To  superficial  observers  it  might  well  seem  that  William 
was,  at  this  time,  one  of  the  most  enviable  of  human  beings. 
He  was  in  truth  one  of  the  most  anxious  and  unhappy.  He 
well  knew  that  the  difficulties  of  his  task  were  only  beginning. 
Already  that  dawn  which  had  lately  been  so  bright  was  over, 
cast ;  and  many  signs  portended  a  dark  and  stormy  day. 

It  was  observed  that  two  important  classes  took  little  or  no 
part  in  the  festivities  by  which,  all  over  England,  the  inaugura- 
tion of  the  new  government  was  celebrated.  Very  seldom 
could  either  a  priest  or  a  soldier  be  seen  in  the  assemblages 
which  gathered  round  the  market  crosses  where  the  King  and 
Queen  were  proclaimed.  The  professional  pride  both  of  the 
clergy  and  of  the  army  had  been  deeply  wounded.  The  doc- 
trine of  nonresistance  had  been  dear  to  the  Anglican  divines. 
It  was  their  distinguishing  badge.  It  was  their  favourite  theme. 
If  we  are  to  judge  by  that  portion  of  their  oratory  which  has 
come  down  to  us,  they  had  preached  about  the  duty  of  passive 
obedience  at  least  as  often  and  as  zealously  as  about  the  Trinity 
or  the  Atonement.f  Their  attachment  to  their  political  creed 
had  indeed  been  severely  tried,  and  had,  during  a  short  time, 
wavered.  But  with  the  tyranny  of  James  the  bitter  feeling 

*  "Wagenaar,  Ixi.  He  quotes  the  proceedings  of  the  States  of  the  2nd  of 
March,  1GS9.  London  Gazette,  April  ii,  ;CSO  ;  Monthly  Mercury  for  April,  1689. 

t  "  I  may  be  positive,"  says  a  writer  who  had  been  educated  at  Westminster 
School,  "  where  I  heard  one  sermon  of  repentance,  faith,  and  the  renewing  of 
tho  Holy  Ghost,  I  heard  three  of  tho  other ;  and  'tis  hard  to  say  whether  Jesus 
Christ  or  King  Charles  the  First  were  oftener  mentioned  and  magnified."— Bis- 
set's  Modern  Fanatic,  1710. 


16  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

X 

which  that  tyranny  had  excited  among  them  had  passed  away. 
The  parson  of  a  parish  was  naturally  unwilling  to  join  in  what 
Was  really  a  triumph  over  those  principles  which,  during  twenty- 
eight  years,  his  flock  had  heard  him  proclaim  on  every  anniver- 
sary of  the  Martyrdom  and  on  every  anniversary  of  the  Restora- 
tion. 

The  soldiers,  too,  were  discontented.  They  hated  Popery 
indeed  ;  and  they  had  not  loved  the  banished  King.  But  they 
keenly  felt  that,  in  the  short  campaign  which  had  decided  the 
fate  of  their  country,  theirs  had  been  an  inglorious  part.  A 
regular  army  such  as  had  never  before  marched  to  battle  under 
the  royal  standard  of  England,  had  retreated  precipitately  be- 
fore an  invader,  and  had  then,  without  a  struggle,  submitted  to 
him.  That  great  force  had  been  absolutely  of  no  account  in  the 
late  change,  had  done  nothing  towards  keeping  William  out, 
and  had  done  nothing  towards  bringing  him  in.  The  clowns, 
who,  armed  with  pitchforks  and  mounted  on  carthorses,  had 
straggled  in  the  train  of  Lovelace  or  Delamere,  had  borne  a 
greater  part  in  the  Revolution  than  those  splendid  household 
troops,  whose  plumed  hats,  embroidered  coats,  and  curvetting 
chargers  the  Londoners  had  so  often  seen  with  admiration  in 
Plyde  Park.  The  mortification  of  the  army  was  increased  by 
the  taunts  of  the  foreigners,  taunts  which  neither  orders  nor 
punishments  could  entirely  restrain.*  At  several  places  the 
anger  which  a  brave  and  highspirited  body  of  men  might,  in 
such  circumstances,  be  expected  to  feel,  showed  itself  in  an 
alarming  manner.  A  battalion  which  lay  at  Cirencester  put 
out  the  bonfires,  huzzaed  for  King  James,  and  drank  confusion 
to  his  daughter  and  his  nephew.  The  garrison  of  Plymouth 
disturbed  the  rejoicings  of  the  County  of  Cornwall :  blows  were 
exchanged ;  and  a  man  was  killed  in  the  fray.f 

The  ill  humour  of  the  clergy  and  of  the  army  could  not  but 
be  noticed  by  the  most  heedless ;  for  the  clergy  and  the  army 
were  distinguished  from  other  classes  by  obvious  peculiarities  of 

«  Paris  Gazette,  Ja"'2fi'  1689  ;  Orange  Gazette,  London  Jan.  10, 1688-9. 

t  Grey's  Debates,  Howe's  Speech,  Feb.  26, 1688-9 ;  Boscawen's  Speech,  March 
1 ;  Luttrell's  Diary,  Feb.  23-27. 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  17 

garb.  "  Black  coats  and  red  coats,"  said  a  vehement  Whig  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  "are  the  curses  of  the  nation."*  But 
the  discontent  was  not  confined  to  the  black  coats  and  the  red 
coats.  The  enthusiasm  with  which  men  of  all  classes  had  wel- 
comed William  to  London  at  Christmas  had  greatly  abated  be- 
fore the  close  of  February.  The  new  King  had,  at  the  very 
moment  at  which  his  fame  and  fortune  reached  the  highest  point, 
predicted  the  coming  reaction.  That  reaction  might,  indeed 
have  been  predicted  by  a  less  sagacious  observer  of  human  af- 
fairs. For  it  is  to  be  chiefly  ascribed  to  a  law  as  certain  as  the 
laws  which  regulate  the  succession  of  the  seasons  and  the  course  of 
the  trade  winds.  It  is  the  nature  of  man  to  overrate  present  evil, 
and  to  underrate  present  good  ;  to  long  for  what  he  has  not,  and 
to  be  dissatisfied  with  what  he  has.  This  propensity,  as  it  appears 
in  individuals,  has  often  been  noticed  both  by  laughing  and  by 
weeping  philosophers.  It  was  a  favourite  theme  of  Horace  and 
of  Pascal,  of  Voltaire  apd  of  Johnson.  To  its  influence  on  the 
fate  of  great  communities  may  be  ascribed  most  of  the  revolu- 
tions and  counterrevolutions  recorded  in  history.  A  hundred 
generations  have  passed  away  since  the  first  great  national  eman- 
cipation, of  which  an  account  has  come  down  to  us.  We  read 
in  the  most  ancient  of  books  that  a  people  bowed  to  the  dust 
under  a  cruel  yoke,  scourged  to  toil  by  hard  taskmasters,  not 
supplied  with  straw,  yet  compelled  to  furnish  the  daily  tale  of 
bricks,  became  sick  of  life,  and  raised  such  a  cry  of  misery  as 
pierced  the  heavens.  The  slaves  were  wonderfully  set  free  : 
at  the  moment  of  their  liberation  they  raised  a  song  of  gratitude 
and  triumph  :  but,  in  a  few  hours,  they  began  to  regret  their 
slavery,  and  to  reproach  the  leader  who  had  decoyed  them  away 
from  the  savoury  fare  of  the  house  of  bondage  to  the  dreary 
waste  which  still  separated  them  from  the  land  flowing  with 
milk  and  honey.  Since  that  time  the  history  of  every  great 
deliverer  has  been  the  history  of  Moses  retold.  Down  to  the 
present  hour  rejoicings  like  those  on  the  shore  of  the  Red  Sea 
have  ever  been  speedily  followed  by  murmurings  like  those  at  the 

*  Grey's  Debates,  Feb.  26.  1688-9. 

VOL.  III.— 2 


18  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Waters  of  Strife.*  The  most  just  and  salutary  revolution  must 
produce  much  suffering.  The  most  just  and  salutary  revolution 
cannot  produce  all  the  good  that  had  been  expected  from  it  by 
men  of  uninstructed  minds  and  sanguine  tempers.  Even  the 
wisest  cannot,  while  it  is  still  recent,  weigh  quite  fairly  the 
evils  which  it  has  caused  against  the  evils  which  it  has  removed. 
For  the  evils  which  it  has  caused  are  felt ;  and  the  evils  which 
it  has  removed  are  felt  no  longer. 

Thus  it  was  now  in  England.  The  public  was,  as  it  always 
is  during  the  cold  fits  which  follow  its  hot  fits,  sullen,  hard  to 
please,  dissatisfied  with  itself,  dissatisfied  with  those  who  had 
lately  been  its  favourites.  The  truce  between  the  two  great 
parties  was  at  an  end.  Separated  by  the  memory  of  all  that 
had  been  done  and  suffered  during  a  conflict  of  half  a  century, 
they  had  been,  during  a  few  months,  united  by  a  common  dan- 
ger. But  the  danger  was  over :  the  union  was  dissolved  ;  and 
the  old  animosity  broke  forth  again  in  all  its  strength. 

James  had,  during  the  last  year  of  his  reign,  been  even  more 
hated  by  the  Tories  than  by  the  Whigs ;  and  not  without 
cause :  for  to  the  Whigs  he  was  only  an  enemy ;  and  to  the 
Tories  he  had  been  a  faithless  and  thankless  friend.  But  the 
old  Royalist  feeling,  which  had  seemed  to  be  extinct  in  the 
time  of  his  lawless  domination,  had  been  partially  revived  by 
his  misfortunes.  Many  lords  and  gentlemen  who  had,  in  De- 
cember, taken  arms  for  the  Prince  of  Orange  and  a  Free  Par- 
liament, muttered  two  months  later,  that  they  had  been  drawn 
in ;  that  they  had  trusted  too  much  to  His  Highness's  Declara- 
tion ;  that  they  had  given  him  credit  for  a  disinterestedness 
which  it  now  appeared  was  not  in  his  nature.  They  had  meant 
to  put  on  King  James,  for  his  own  good,  some  gentle  force,  to 
punish  the  Jesuits  and  renegades  who  had  misled  him,  to  ob- 
tain from  him  some  guarantee  for  the  safety  of  the  civil  and 
ecclesiastical  institutions  of  the  realm,  but  not  to  uncrown  and 

»  This  illustration  is  repeated  to  satiety  in  sermons  and  pamphlets  of  the 
time  of  William  the  Third.  There  is  a  poor  imitation  of  Absalom  and  Ahitophel 
entitled  the  Murmurers.  William  is  Moses  ;  Corah,  Dathan,  and  Abiram,  non- 
juring  Bishops  ;  Balaam,  I  think,  Dryden  ;  and  Phinehas  Shrewsbury. 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  19 

banish  him.  For  his  maladministration,  gross  as  it  had  been, 
excuses  were  found.  Was  it  strange  that,  driven  from  his  na- 
tive land,  while  still  a  boy,  by  rebels  who  were  a  disgrace  to 
the  Protestant  name,  and  forced  to  pass  his  youth  in  countries 
where  the  Roman  Catholic  religion  was  established,  he  should 
have  been  captivated  by  tha£  most  attractive  of  alf  supersti- 
tions ?  Was  it  strange  that,  persecuted  and  calumniated  as  he 
had  been  by  an  implacable  faction,  his  disposition  should  have 
become  sterner  and  more  severe  than  it  had  once  been  thought, 
and  that,  when  those  who  had  tried  to  blast  his  honour  and  to 
rob  him  of  his  birthright  were  at  length  in  his  power,  he  should 
not  have  sufficiently  tempered  justice  with  mercy  ?  As  to  the 
worst  charge  which  had  been  brought  against  him,  the  charge 
of  trying  to  cheat  his  daughters  out  of  their  inheritance  by 
fathering  a  supposititious  child,  on  what  grounds  did  it  rest  ? 
Merely  on  slight  circumstances,  such  as  might  well  be  imputed 
to  accident,  or  to  that  imprudence  which  was  but  too  much  in 
harmony  with  his  character.  Did  ever  the  most  stupid  country 
justice  put  a  boy  in  the  stocks  without  requiring  stronger  evi- 
dence than  that  on  which  the  English  people  had  pronounced 
their  King  guilty  of  the  basest  and  most  odious  of  all  frauds  ? 
Some  great  faults  he  had  doubtless  committed  :  nothing  could 
be  more  just  or  constitutional  than  that  for  those  faults  his  ad- 
visers and  tools  should  be  called  to  a  severe  reckoning ;  nor 
did  any  of  those  advisers  and  tools  more  richly  deserve  punish- 
ment than  the  Roundhead  sectaries  whose  adulation  had  en- 
couraged him  to  persist  in  the  fatal  exercise  of  the  dispensing 
power.  It  was  a  fundamental  principle  of  law  that  the  King 
could  do  no  wrong,  and  that,  if  wrong  were  done  by  his  author- 
ity, his  counsellors  and  agents  were  responsible.  That  great 
rule,  essential  to  our  polity,  was  now  inverted.  The  sycophants, 
who  were  legally  punishable,  enjoyed  impunity :  the  King, 
who  was  not  legally  punishable,  was  punished  with  merciless 
severity.  Was  it  possible  for  the  Cavaliers  of  England,  the 
sons  of  the  warriors  who  had  fought  under  Rupert,  not  to  feel 
bitter  sorrow  and  indignation  when  they  reflected  on  the  fate  of 
their  rightful  liege  lord  the  heir  of  along  line  of  orinces,  lately 


20  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

enthroned  in  splendour  at  Whitehall,  now  an  exile,  a  suppliant, 
a  mendicant  ?  His  calamities  had  been  greater  than  even  those 
of  the  Blessed  Martyr  from  whom  he  sprang.  The  father  had 
been  slain  by  avowed  and  deadly  foes :  the  ruin  of  the  son  had 
been  the  work  of  his  own  children.  Surely  the  punishment, 
even  if  deserved,  should  have  been  inflicted  by  other  hands. 
And  was  it  altogether  deserved  ?  Had  not  the  unhappy  man 
been  rather  weak  and  rash  than  wicked  ?  Had  he  not  some  of 
the  qualities  of  an  excellent  prince  ?  His  abilities  were  cer- 
tainly not  of  a  high  order  :  but  he  was  diligent :  he  was  thrifty : 
he  had  fought  bravely  :  he  had  been  his  own  minister  for  mari- 
time affairs,  and  had,  in  that  capacity  acquitted  himself  respect- 
ably :  he  had,  till  his  spiritual  guides  obtained  a  fatal  ascend- 
ency over  his  mind,  been  regarded  as  a  man  of  strict  justice  ; 
and,  to  the  last,  when  he  was  not  misled  by  them,  he  generally 
spoke  truth  and  dealt  fairly.  With  so  many  virtues  he  might, 
if  he  had  been  a  Protestant,  nay,  if  he  had  been  a  moderate 
Roman  Catholic,  have  had  a  prosperous  and  glorious  reign. 
Perhaps  it  might  not  be  too  late  for  him  to  retrieve  his  errors. 
It  was  difficult  to  believe  that  he  could  be  so  dull  and  perverse 
as  not  to  have  profited  by  the!  terrible  discipline  which  he  had 
recently  undergone  ;  and,  if  that  discipline  h;td  produced  the 
effects  which  might  reasonably  be  expected  from  it,  England 
might  still  enjoy,  under  her  legitimate  ruler,  a  larger  measure 
of  happiness  and  tranquillity  than  she  could  expect  from  the 
•administration  of  the  best  and  ablest  usurper. 

We  should  do  great  injustice  to  those  who  held  this  lan- 
guage, if  we  supposed  that  they  had,  as  a  body,  ceased  to  regard 
Popery  and  despotism  with  abhorrence.  Some  zealots  might 
indeed  be  found  who  could  not  bear  the  thought  of  imposing 
conditions  on  their  King,  and  who  were  ready  to  recall  him 
without  the  smallest  assurance  that  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dulgence should  not  be  instantly  republished,  that  the  High 
Commission  should  not  be  instantly  revived,  that  Petre  should 
not  be  again  seated  at  the  Council  Board,  and  that  the  Fellows 
of  Magdalene  should  not  again  be  ejected.  But  the  number  of 
these  men  was  small.  On  the  other  hand,  the  number  of  those 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  21 

Royalists,  who,  if  James  would  have  acknowledged  his  mistakes 
and  promised  to  observe  the  laws,  were  ready  to  rally  round 
him,  was  very  largo.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  two  able  and 
experienced  statesmen,  who  had  borne  a  chief  part  in  the 
Revolution,  frankly  acknowledged,  a  few  days  after  the  Revolu- 
tion had  been  accomplished,  their  apprehension  that  a  Restora- 
tion was  close  at  hand.  "If  King  James  were  a  Protestant,"  said 
Halifax  to  Reresby,  "  we  could  not  keep  him  out  four  months." 
"  If  King  James,"  said  Danby  to  Reresby  about  the  same  time, 
"  would  but  give  the  country  some  satisfaction  about  religion, 
which  he  might  easily  do,  it  would  be  very  hard  to  make  head 
against  him."  *  Happily  for  England,  .J^iines  was,  as  usual,  his 
own  worst  enemy.  No  word  indicating  that  he  took  blame  to 
himself  on" account  of  the  past,  or  that  he  intended  to  govern 
constitutionally  for  the  future,  could  be  extracted  from  him. 
Every  letter,  every  rumour,  that  found  its  way  from  Saint 
Germains  to  England  made  men  of  sense  fear  that,  if,  in  his 
present  temper,  he  should  be  restored  to  power,  the  second 
tyranny  would  be  worse  than  the  first.  Thus  the  Tories,  as  a 
body,  were  forced  to  admit  very  unwillingly,  that  there  was, 
at  that  moment,  no  choice  but  between  William  and  public  ruin. 
They  therefore,  without  altogether  relinquishing  the  hope  that 
he  who  was  King  by  right  might  at  some  future  time  be  dis- 
posed to  listen  to  reason,  and  without  feeling  anything  like 
loyalty  towards  him  who  was  King  in  possession,  discontentedly 
endured  the  new  government. 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  that  government  was  not,  during 
the  first  months  of  its  existence,  in  more  danger  from  the  affection 
of  the  Whigs  than  from  the  disaffection  of  the  Tories.  Enmity 
can  hardly  be  more  annoying  than  querulous,  jealous,  exacting 
fondness  ;  and  such  was  the  fondness  which  the  Whigs  felt  for 
the  Sovereign  of  their  choice.  They  were  loud  in  his  praise. 
They  were  ready  to  support  him  with  purse  and  sword  against 
foreign  and  domestic  foes.  But  their  attachment  to  him  was 
of  a  peculiar  kind.  Loyalty  such  as  had  animated  the  gallant 
gentlemen  who  had  fought  for  Charles  the  First,  loyalty  such 

*  Keresby's  Memoirs- 


22  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

as  had  rescued  Charles  the  Second  from  the  fearful  dangers  and 
difficulties  caused  by  twenty  years  of  maladministration,  was 
not  a  sentiment  to  which  the  doctrines  of  Milton  and  Sidney 
were  favourable  :  nor  was  it  a  sentiment  which  a  prince,  just 
raised  to  power  by  a  rebellion,  could  hope  to  inspire.  The 
Whig  theory  of  government  is  that  kings  exist  for  the  people, 
and  not  the  people  for  kings  ;  that  the  right  of  a  king  is  di- 
vine in  no  other  sense  than  that  in  which  the  right  of  a  mem- 
ber of  parliament,  of  a  judge,  of  a  juryman,  of  a  mayor,  of  a 
headborough,  is  divine  ;  that  while  the  chief  magistrate  governs 
according  to  law,  he  ought  to  be  obeyed  and  reverenced  ;  that, 
when  he  violates  the  law,  he  ought  to  be  withstood  ;  and  that, 
when  he  violates  the  law  grossly,  systematically,  and  pertina- 
ciously, he  ought  to  be  deposed.  On  the  truth  of  these  princi- 
ples depended  the  justice  of  William's  title  to  the  throne.  It  is 
obvious  that  the  relation  between  subjects  who  held  these  princi- 
ples, and  a  ruler  whose  accession  had  been  the  triumph  of  these 
principles,  must  have  been  altogether  different  from  the  rela- 
tion which  had  subsisted  between  the  Stniarts  and  the  Cavaliers. 
The  Whigs  loved  William  indeed  :  but  they  loved  him,  not  as 
a  king,  but  as  a  party  leader  ;  and  it  was  not  difficult  to  foresee 
that  their  enthusiasm  would  cool  fast  if  he  should  refuse  to  be 
the  mere  leader  of  their  party,  and  should  attempt  to  be  king 
of  the  whole  nation.  What  they  expected  from  him  in  return 
for  their  devotion  to  his  cause  was  that  he  should  be  one  of 
themselves,  a  stanch  and  ardent  Whig  ;  that  he  should  show 
favour  to  none  but  Whigs ;  that  he  should  make  all  the  old 
grudges  of  the  Whigs  his  own  ;  and  there  was  but  too  much 
reason  to  apprehend  that,  if  he  disappointed  this  expectation, 
the  only  section  of  the  community  which  was  zealous  in  his 
cause  would  be  estranged  from  him.* 

Such  were  the  difficulties  by  which  at  the  moment  of  his 

*  Here,  and  in  many  other  places,  I  abstain  from  citing  authorities,  because 
my  authorities  are  too  numerous  to  cite.  My  notions  of  the  temper  arid  relative 
position  of  political  and  religious  parties  in  the  reign  of  William  the  Third,  have 
been  derived,  not  from  any  single  work,  but  from  thousands  of  forgotten  tracts, 
sermons,  and  satires  ;  in  fact,  from  a  whole  literature  which  is  mouldering  in 
old  libraries. 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  23 

elevation,  he  found  himself  beset.  Where  there  was  a  good 
path  he  had  seldom  failed  to  choose  it.  But  now  he  had  only  a 
choice  among  paths  every  one  of  which  seemed  likely  to  lead  to 
destruction.  From  one  faction  he  could  hope  for  no  cordial 
support.  The  cordial  support  of  the  other  faction  he  could  re. 
tain  only  by  becoming  the  most  factious  man  in  his  kingdom,  a 
Shaftesbury  on  the  throne.  If  he  persecuted  the  Tories,  their 
sulkiness  would  infallibly  be  turned  into  fu  y.  If  he  showed 
favour  to  the  Tories,  it  was  by  no  means  certain  that  he  would 
gain  their  goodwill ;  and  it  was  but  too  probable  that  he  might 
lose  his  hold  on  the  hearts  of  the  Whigs.  Something  however 
he  must  do :  something  he  must  risk  :  a  Privy  Council  must  be 
sworn  in  :  all  the  great  offices,  political  and  judicial,  must  be 
tilled.  It  was  impossible  to  make  an  arrangement  that  would 
please  everybody,  and  difficult  to  make  an  arrangement  that 
would  please  anybody  :  but  an  arrangement  must  be  made. 

What  is  now  called  a  ministry  he  did  not  think  of  forming. 
Indeed  what  is  now  called  a  ministry  was  never  known  in  Eng- 
land till  he  had  been  some  years  on  the  throne.  Under  the 
Plantagenets,  the  Tudors,  and  the  Stuarts,  there  had  been  min- 
isters :  but  there  had  been  no  ministry.  The  servants  of  the 
Crown  were  not,  as  now,  bound  in  frankpledge  for  each  other. 
They  were  not  expected  to  be  of  the  same  opinion  even  on 
questions  of  the  gravest  importance.  Often  they  were  politically 
and  personally  hostile  to  each  other,  and  made  no  secret  of  their 
hostility.  It  was  not  yet  felt  to  be  inconvenient  or  unseemly 
that  they  should  accuse  each  other  of  high  crimes,  and  demand 
each  other's  heads.  No  man  had  been  more  active  in  the  im- 
peachment of  the  Lord  Chancellor  Clarendon  than  Coventry, 
who  was  a  Commisioner  of  the  Treasury.  No  man  had  been 
more  active  in  the  impeachment  of  the  Lord  Treasurer  Danby 
than  Winnington,  who  was  Solicitor  General.  Among  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Government  there  was  only  one  point  of  union,  their 
common  head,  the  Sovereign.  The  nation  considered  him  as  the 
proper  chief  of  the  administration,  and  blamed  him  severely  if 
he  delegated  his  high  functions  to  any  subject.  Clarendon  has 
told  us  that  nothing  was  so  hateful  to  the  Englishmen  of  his 


24  HISTORY   OP   ENGLAND. 

time  as  a  Prime  Minister.  They  would  rather,  he  said,  be  sub- 
ject to  an  usurper  like  Oliver,  who  was  first  magistrate  in  fact 
as  well  as  in  name,  than  to  a  legitimate  King  who  referred 
them  to  a  Grand  Vizier.  One  of  the  chief  accusations  which 
the  country  party  had  brought  against  Charles  the  Second 
was  that  he  was  too  indolent  and  too  fond  of  pleasure  to 
examine  with  care  the  balance  sheets  of  public  accountants 
and  the  inventories  of  military  stores.  James,  when  he  came 
to  the  crown,  had  determined  to  appoint  no  Lord  High  Admiral 
or  Board  of  Admiralty,  and  to  keep  the  entire  direction  of  mari- 
time affairs  in  his  own  hands  ;  and  this  arrangement,  which  would 
now  be  thought  by  men  ,of  all  parties  unconstitutional  and  per- 
nicious in  the  highest  degree,  was  then  generally  applauded  even 
by  people  who  were  not  inclined  to  see  his  conduct  in  a  favour- 
able light.  How  completely  the  relation  in  which  the  King 
stood  to  his  Parliament  and  to  his  ministers  had  been  altered  by 
the  Revolution  was  not  at  first  understood  even  by  the  most  en- 
lightened statesmen.  It  was  universally  supposed  that  the  gov- 
ernment would,  as  in  time  past,  be  conducted  by  functionaries 
independent  of  each  other,  and  that  William  would  exercise  a 
general  superintendence  over  them  all.  It  was  also  fully  ex- 
pected that  a  prince  of  William's  capacity  and  experience  would 
transact  much  important  business  without  having  recourse  to  any 
adviser. 

There  were  therefore  no  complaints  when  it  was  understood 
that  he  had  reserved  to  himself  the  direction  of  foreign  affairs. 
This  was  indeed  scarcely  matter  of  choice :  for,  with  the  single 
exception  of  Sir  William  Temple,  whom  nothing  would  induce 
to  quit  his  retreat  for  public  life,  there  was  no  Englishman 
who  had  proved  himself  capable  of  conducting  an  important  ne- 
gotiation with  foreign  powers  to  a  successful  and  honourable 
issue.  Many  years  had  elapsed  since  England  had  interfered 
with  weight  and  dignity  in  the  affairs  of  the  great  commonwealth 
of  nations.  The  attention  of  the  ablest  English  politicians  h  J 
long  been  almost  exclusively  occupied  by  disputes  con  ning 
the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  constitution  of  their  own  country. 
The  contests  about  the  Popish  Plot  and  the  Exclusion  Bill,  the 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  25 

Habeas  Corpus  Act  and  the  Test  Act,  had  produced  an  abun- 
dance, indeed  a  glut,  of  those  talents  which  raise  men  to  emi« 
nence  in  societies  torn  by  internal  factions.  All  the  Continent 
could  not  show  such  skilful  and  wary  leaders  of  parties,  such 
dexterous  parliamentary  tacticians,  such  ready  and  eloquent  de- 
baters, as  were  assembled  at  Westminster.  But  a  very  different 
training  was  necessary  to  form  a  great  minister  for  foreign  af- 
fairs ;  and  the  Revolution  had  on  a  sudden  placed  England  in 
a  situation  in  which  the  services  of  a  great  minister  for  foreign 
affairs  were  indispensable  to  her. 

William  was  admirably  qualified  to  supply  that  in  which 
the  most  accomplished  statesmen  of  his  kingdom  were  deficient. 
He  had  long  been  preeminently  distinguished  as  a  negotiator. 
He  was  the  author  and  the  soul  of  the  European  coalition 
against  the  French  ascendency.  The  clue,  without  which  it 
was  perilous  to  enter  the  vast  and  intricate  maze  of  Continental 
politics,  was  in  his  hands.  His  English  counsellors,  therefore, 
however  able  and  active,  seldom,  during  his  reign,  ventured  to 
meddle  with  that  part  of  the  public  business  which  he  had  taken, 
as  his  peculiar  province.* 

The  internal  government  of  England  could  be  carried  on 
ojily  by  the  advice  and  agency  of  English  ministers.  Those 
ministers  Wimam  selected  in  such  a  manner  as  showed  that 
he  was  determined  not  to  proscribe  any  set  of  men  who  were 
willing  to  support  his  throne.  On  the  day  after  the  crown  had 
been  presented  to  him  in  the  Banqueting  House,  the  Privy 
Council  was  sworn  in.  Most  of  the  Councillors  were  Whigs  : 
but  the  names  of  several  eminent  Tories  appeared  in  the  list-t 
The  four  highest  offices  in  the  state  were  assigned  to  four  noble- 
men, the  representatives  of  four  classes  of  politicians. 

In  practical  ability  and  official  experience  Danby  had  no 
superior  among  his  contemporaries.  To  the  gratitude  of  the 
new  Sovereigns  he  had  a  strong  claim  ;  for  it  was  by  his  dex- 

*  The  following  passage  in  a  tiact  of  that  time  expresses  the  general  opinion. 
"He  has  better  knowledge  of  foreign  affairs  than  we  have  ;  but  in  Knelish  bus- 
iness it  is  no  dishonour  to  him  to  be  told  his  relation  to  us,  the  nature  of  it,  and 
what  is  fit  for  him  to  do." — An  Honest  Commoner's  Speech. 

t  London  Gazette,  Feb.  18, 16S8-9. 


26  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

terity  that  their  marriage  had  been  brought  about  in  spite  of 
difficulties  which  had  seemed  insuperable.  The  enmity  which 
he  had  always  borne  to  France  was  a  scarcely  less  powerful 
recommendation.  He  had  signed  the  invitation  of  the  thirtieth 
of  June,  had  excited  and  directed  the  Northern  insurrection, 
and  had,  in  the  Convention,  exerted  all  his  influence  and  elo- 
quence in  opposition  to  the  scheme  of  Regency.  Yet  the  Whigs 
regarded  him  with  unconquerable  distrust  and  aversion.  They 
could  not  forget  that  he  had,  in  evil  days,  been  the  first  minister 
of  the  state,  the  head  of  the  Cavaliers,  the  champion  of  preroga- 
tive, the  persecutor  of  dissenters.  Even  in  becoming  a  rebel, 
he  had  not  ceased  to  be  a  Tory.  If  he  had  drawn  the  sword 
against  the  crown,  he  had  drawn  it  only  in  defence  of  the  Church. 
If  he  had,  in  the  Convention,  done  good  by  opposing  the  scheme 
of  Regency,  he  had  done  harm  by  obstinately  maintaining  that 
the  throne  was  not  vacant,  and  that  the  Estates  had  no  right  to 
determine  who  should  fill  it.  The  Whigs  were  therefore  of 
opinion  that  he  ought  to  think  himself  ampty  rewarded  for  his 
recent  merits  by  being  suffered  to  escape  the  punishment  of  those 
offences  for  which  he  had  been  impeached  ten  years  before.  He, 
on  the  other  hand,  estimated  his  own  abilities  and  services, 
which  were  doubtless  considerable,  at  their  full  value,  and 
thought  himself  entitled  to  the  great  place  of  Lord  High  Treas- 
urer, which  he  had  formerly  held.  But  he  was  disappointed. 
William,  on  principle,  thought  it  desirable  to  divide  the  power 
and  patronage  of  the  Treasury  among  several  Commissioners. 
He  was  the  first  English  King  who  never,  from  the  beginning 
to  the  end  of  his  reign,  trusted  the  white  staff  in  the  hands  of 
a  single  subject.  Danby  was  offered  his  choice  between  the 
Presidency  of  the  Council  and  a  Secretaryship  of  State.  He 
sullenly  accepted  the  Presidency,  and  while  the  Whigs  mur- 
mured at  seeing  him  placed  so  high,  hardly  attempted  to  con- 
ceal his  anger  at  not  having  been  placed  higher.* 

Halifax,  the  most  illustrious  man  of  that  small   party  which 
boasted  that  it  kept  the  balance  even  between   Whigs    and 
Tories,  took  charge  of  the   Privy   Seal,  and   continued  to   be 
»  London  Gazette,  Feb.  18, 1688-9  ;  Sir  J.  Beresby's  Memoirs. 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  27 

Speaker  of  the  House  of  Lords.*  He  had  been  foremost  in 
strictly  legal  opposition  to  the  late  Government,  and  had  spoken 
and  written  with  great  ability  against  the  dispensing  power: 
but  he  had  refused  to  know  any  thing  about  the  design  of  in- 
vasion :  he  had  laboured,  even  when  the  Dutch  were  in  full 
march  towards  London,  to  effect  a  reconcilation ;  and  he  had 
never  deserted  James  till  James  had  deserted  the  throne.  But, 
from  the  moment  of  that  shameful  flight,  the  sagacious  Trim- 
mer, convinced  that  compromise  was  thenceforth  impossible,  had 
taken  a  decided  part.  He  had  distinguished  himself  preemi- 
nently in  the  Convention  ;  nor  was  it  without  a  peculiar  propriety 
that  he  had  been  appointed  to  the  honourable  office  of  tender- 
ing the  crown,  in  the  name  of  all  the  Estates  of  England,  to 
the  Prince  and  Princess  of  Orange  :  for  our  Revolution,  as  far 
as  it  can  be  said  to  bear  the  character  of  any  single  mind, 
assuredly  bears  the  character  of  the  large  yet  cautious 
mind  of  Plalifax.  The  Whigs,  however,  were  not  in  a  temper 
to  accept  a  recent  service  as  an  atonement  for  an  old  offence ; 
and  the  offence  of  Halifax  had  been  grave  indeed.  He  had 
long  before  been  conspicuous  in  their  front  rank  during  a  hard 
fight  for  liberty.  When  they  were  at  length  victorious,  when 
it  seemed  that  Whitehall  was  at  their  mercy,  when  they  had  a 
near  prospect  of  dominion  and  revenge,  he  had  changed  sides  ; 
and  fortune  had  changed  sides  with  him.  In  the  great  debate 
on  the  Exclusion  Bill,  his  eloquence  had  struck  the  Opposition 
dumb,  and  had  put  new  life  into  the  inert  and  desponding  party 
of  the  Court.  It  was  true,  that,  though  he  had  left  his  old 
friends  in  the  day  of  their  insolent  prosperity,  he  had  returned 
to  them  in  the  day  of  their  distress.  But,  now  that  their  dis- 
tress was  over,  they  forgot  that  he  had  returned  to  them,  and 
remembered  only  that  he  had  left  them.f 

The  vexation  with  which  they  saw  Danby  presiding  in  the 
Council,  and  Halifax  bearing  the  Privy  Seal,  was  not  dimin- 
ished by  the  news  that  Nottingham  was  appointed  Secretary  of 
State.  Some  of  those  zealous  churchiren  who  had  never  ceased 
to  profess  the  doctrine  of  nonresistance,  who  thought  the  Rev- 

»  London  Gazette,  Feb.  18, 1688-9  ;  Lords'  Journals.  t  Burnet,  ii.  4. 


28  HISTORY   OP   ENGLAND. 

olution  unjustifiable,  who  had  voted  for  a  Regency,  and  who 
had  to  the  last  maintained  that  the  English  throne  could  never 
be  one  moment  vacant,  yet  conceived  it  to  be  their  duty  to  sub- 
mit to  the  decision  of  the  Convention.  They  htid  not,  they 
said,  rebelled  against  James.  They  had  not  elected  William. 
But,  now  that  they  saw  on  the  throne  a  Sovereign  whom  they 
never  would  have  placed  there,  they  were  of  opinion  that  no 
law,  divine  or  human,  bound  them  to  carry  the  contest  further. 
They  thought  that  they  found,  both  in  the  Bible  and  in  the 
Statute  Book,  directions  which  could  not  be  misunderstood. 
The  Bible  enjoins  obedience  to  the  powers  that  be.  The  Stat- 
ute Book  contains  an  Act  providing  that  no  subject  shall  be 
deemed  a  wrongdoer  for  adhering  to  the  King  in  possession. 
On  these  grounds  many,  who  had  not  concurred  in  setting  up 
the  new  government,  believed  that  they  might  give  it  their 
support  without  offence  to  God  or  man.  One  of  the  most 
eminent  politicians  of  this  school  was  Nottingham.  At  his 
instance  the  Convention  had,  before  the  throne  was  filled, 
made  such  changes  in  the  oath  of  allegiance  as  enabled  him 
and  those  who  agreed  with  him  to  take  that  oath  without  scruple. 
"  My  principles,"  he  said,  "  do  not  permit  me  to  bear  any  part 
in  making  a  King.  But  when  a  King  has  been,  made,  my  prin- 
ciples bind  me  to  pay  him  an  obedience  more  strict  than  he  can 
expect  from  those  who  have  made  him."  He  now,  to  the  .sur- 
prise of  some  of  those  who  most  esteemed  him.  consented  to  sit 
in  the  council,  and  to  accept  the  seals  of  Secretary.  William 
doubtless  hoped  that  this  appointment  would  be  considered  by 
the  clergy  and  the  Tory  country  gentlemen  as  a  sufficient  guar- 
antee that  no  evil  was  meditated  against  the  Church.  Even 
Burnet,  who  at  a  later  period  felt  a  strong  antipathy  to  Not- 
tingham, owned,  in  some  memoirs  written  soon  after  the  Rev- 
olution, that  the  King  had  judged  well,  and  that  the  influence 
of  the  Tory  Secretary,  honestly  exerted  in  support  of  the  new 
Sovereigns,  had  saved  England  from  great  calamities.* 

*  These  memoirs  will  be  found  in  a  manuscript  volume,  which  is  part  of  the 
Harleian  Collection,  and  is  numbered  G584.  They  are  in  fact,  the  first  outlines  of 
a  great  part  of  Buruet's  .History  of  Ilia  Own  Times.  The  dates  at  which  the 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  29 

The  other  secretary  was  Shrewsbury.*  No  man  so  young 
had  within  living  memory  occupied  so  high  a  post  in  the  gov- 
ernment. He  had  but  just  completed  his  twenty -eighth  year. 
Nobody,  however,  except  the  solemn  formalists  at  the  Spanish 
embassy,  thought  his  youth  an  objection  to  his  promotion.!  He 
had  already  secured  for  himself  a  place  in  history  by  the  con- 
spicuous part  which  he  had  taken  in  the  deliverance  of  his  coun- 
try. His  talents,  his  accomplishments,  his  graceful  manners,  his 
bland  temper,  made  him  generally  popular.  By  the  Whigs 
especially  he  was  almost  adored.  None  suspected  that,  with 
many  great  and  many  amiable  qualities,  he  had  such  faults  both 
of  head  and  of  heart  as  would  make  the  rest  of  a  life  which  had 
opened  under  the  fairest  auspices  burdensome  to  himself  and 
almost  useless  to  his  country. 

The  naval  administration  and  the  financial  administration 
were  confided  to  Boards.  Herbert  was  First  Commissioner  of 
the  Admiralty.  He  had  in  the  late  reign  given  up  wealth  and 
dignities  when  he  had  found  that  he  could  not  retain  them  with 
honour  and  with  a  good  conscience.  He  had  carried  the  mem- 
orable invitation  to  the  Hague.  He  had  commanded  the  Dutch 
fleet  during  the  voyage  from  Helvoetsluys  to  Torbay.  His 
character  for  courage  and  orofessional  skill  stood  high.  That 
he  had  had  his  lollies  and  vices  was  well  known.  But  his 
recent  conduct  in  the  time  of  severe  trial  had  atoned  for  all,  and 
seemed  to  warrant  the  hope  that  his  future  career  would  be 
glorious.  Among  the  commissioners  who  sate  with  him  at  the 

different  portions  of  this  most  curious  and  interesting  book  were  composed  are 
marked.  Almost  the  whole  was  written  before  the  death  of  Mary.  Burnet  did 
not  begin  to  prepare  his  History  of  William's  Reign  for  the  press  till  ten  years 
later.  By  that  time  his  opinions,  both  of  men  and  of  things,  had  undergone  con- 
siderable changes.  The  value  of  the  rough  draught  is  therefore  very  great :  for 
it  contains  some  facts  which  he  afterwards  thought  it  advisable  to  suppress,  and 
some  judgments  which  he  afterwards  saw  cause  to  alter.  I  must  own  that  I 
generally  like  his  first  thoughts  best  "Whenever  his  History  is  reprinted,  it 
ought  to  be  carefully  collated  with  this  volume. 

When  I  refer  to  the  Burnet  MS.  Harl.  6584, 1  "wish  the  reader  to  understand 
that  the  MS.  contains  something  which  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  History. 

As  to  Nottingham's  appointment,  see  Burnet,  ii.  8  ;  the  London  Gazette  of 
March  7, 1688-9  ;  and  Clarendon's  Diary  of  Feb.  15, 

*  London  Gazette,  Feb.  13,  1688-9. 

t  Don  Pedro  do  Ronquillo  makes  this  objection. 


30  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

Admiralty  were  two  distinguished  members  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, William  Sacheverell,  a  veteran  Whig,  who  had  great  au- 
thority in  his  party,  and  Sir  John  Lowther,  an  honest  and 
very  moderate  Tory,  who  in  fortune  and  parliamentary  in- 
terest was  among  the  first  of  the  English  gentry  * 

Mordauut,  one  of  the  most  vehement  of  the  Whigs,  was 
placed  at  the  head  of  the  Treasury  ;  why,  it  is  difficult  to  say. 
His  romantic  courage,  his  flighty  wit,  his  eccentric  invention, 
his  love  of  desperate  risks  and  startling  effects,  were  not  qual- 
ities likely  to  be  of  much  use  to  him  in  financial  calculations 
and  negotiations.  Delamere,  a  more  vehement  Whig  if 
possible,  than  Mordaunt,  sate  second  at  the  board,  and  was 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.  Two  Whig  members  of  the 
House  of  Commons  were  in  the  Commission,  Sir  lienry  Capel, 
brother  of  the  Earl  of  Essex  who  died  by  his  own  hand  in  the 
Tower,  and  Richard  Hampden,  son  of  the  great  leader  of  the  Long 
Parliament.  But  the  Commissioner  on  whom  the  chief  weight 
of  business  lay  was  Godolphin.  This  man,  taciturn,  clearmind- 
ed,  laborious,  inoffensive,  zealous  for  no  government,  and  useful 
to  every  government,  had  gradually  become  an  almost  indis- 
pensable part  of  the  machinery  of  the  state.  Though  a  church- 
man, he  had  prospered  in  a  Court  governed  by  Jesuits.  Though 
he  had  voted  for  a  Regency,  he  was  the  real  head  of  a  Treasury 
filled  with  Whigs.  His  abilities  and  knowledge,  which  had  in 
in  the  late  reign  supplied  the  deficiencies  of  Bellasyse  and  Dover, 
were  now  needed  to  supply  the  deficiencies  of  Mordaunt  and 
Delamere.f 

There  were  some  difficulties  in  disposing  of  the  Great  Seal. 
The  King  at  first  wished  to  confide  it  to  Nottingham,  whose 
father  had  borne  it  during  several  years  with  high  reputation.  $ 
Nottingham,  however,  declined  the  trust ;  and  it  was  offered  to 
Halifax,  but  was  again  declined.  Both  these  lords  doubtless 

*  London  Gazette,  March  11, 1C88-9.  t  Ibid. 

t  I  have  followed  what  seems  to  me  the  most  probable  story.  But  U  has  been 
doubted  whether  Nottingham  was  invited  to  be  Chancellor,  or  only  to  bo  First 
Commissioner  of  the  Great  Seal.  Compare  Burnet,  ii.  I',  and  Boyer's  History  of 
William,  1702.  Narcissua  Liittrcll  repeatedly,  and  even  as  late  as  the  close  of 
1692.  speaks  of  Nottingham  as  likely  to  be  Chancellor. 


WILLIAM   AND   MART.  31 

felt  that  it  was  a  trust  which  they  could  not  discharge  with  hon- 
our to  themselves  or  with  advantage  to  the  public.  In  old 
times,  indeed,  the  Seal  had  been  generally  held  by  persons  who 
were  not  lawyers.  Even  in  the  seventeenth  century  it  had 
been  confided  to  two  eminent  men  who  had  never  studied  at 
any  Inn  of  Court.  Williams  had  been  Lord  Keeper  to  James 
the  First.  Shaftesbury  had  been  Lord  Chancellor  to  Charles 
the  Second.  But  such  appointments  could  no  longer  be  made 
without  serious  inconvenience.  Equity  had  been  gradually 
shaping  itself  into  a  refined  science,  which  no  human  faculties 
could  master  without  long  and  intense  application.  Even 
Shaftesbury,  vigorous  as  was  his  intellect,  had  painfully  felt  his 
want  of  technical  knowledge  ;  *  and,  during  the  fifteen  years 
which  had  Elapsed  since  Shaftesbury  had  resigned  the  Seal, 
technical  knowledge  had  constantly  been  becoming  more  and 
more  necessary  to  his  successors.  Neither  Nottingham,  there- 
fore, though  he  had  a  stock  of  legal  learning  such  as  is  rarely 
found  in  any  person  who  had  not  received  a  legal  education,  nor 
Halifax,  though  in  the  judicial  sittings  of  the  House  of  Lords, 
the  quickness  of  his  apprehension,  and  the  subtlety  of  his  reason- 
ing had  often  astonished  the  bar,  ventured  to  accept  the  highest 
office  which  an  English  layman  can  fill.  After  some  delay  the 
Seal  was  confided  to  a  commission  of  eminent  lawyers,  with 
Maynard  at  their  head.f 

The  choice  of  Judges  did  honour  to  the  new  government. 
Every  privy  Councillor  was  directed  to  bring  a  list.  The  lists 
were  compared ;  and  twelve  men  of  conspicuous  merit  were 
selected. f  The  professional  attainments  and  Whig  principles 
of  Pollexfen  gave  him  pretensions  to  the  highest  place.  But  it 
was  remembered  that  he  had  held  briefs  for  the  Crown,  in  the 
Western  counties,  at  the  assizes  which  followed  the  battle  of 
Sedgemoor.  It  seems  indeed  from  the  reports  of  the  trials,  that 
he  did  as  little  as  he  could  do  if  he  held  the  briefs  at  all,  and 
that  he  left  to  the  Judges  the  business  of  browbeating  witnesses 
and  prisoners.  Nevertheless  his  name  was  inseparably  associated 

*  Roger  North  relates  an  amusing  story  about  Shaftesbury's  embarrassment. 
t  London  Gazette,  March  4  16S8-9.  t  Burnet,  ii.  5. 


32  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

in  the  public  mind  with  the  Bloody  Circuit.  He,  therefore, 
could  not  with  propriety  be  put  at  the  head  of  the  first  criminal 
court  in  the  realm.  *  After  acting  during  a  few  weeks  ass 
Attorney  General,  he  was  made  Chief  Justice  of  the  Common 
Pleas.  Sir  John  Holt,  a  young  man,  but  distinguished  by  learn- 
ing, integrity,  and  courage,  became  Chief  Justice  of  the  King's 
Bench.  Sir  Robert  Atkyns,  an  eminent  lawyer  who  had  passed 
some  years  in  rural  retirement,  but  whose  reputation  was  still 
great  in  Westminster  Hall,  was  appointed  Chief  Baron.  Powell 
who  had  been  disgraced  on  account  of  his  honest  declaration  iu 
favour  of  the  Bishops,  again  took  his  seat  among  the  Judges. 
Treby  succeeded  Pollexfen  as  •  Attorney  General  ;  and  Somers 
was  made  Solicitor.! 

Two  of  the  chief  places  in  the  Royal  household  were  filled 
by  two  English  noblemen  eminently  qualified  to  adorn  a  court. 
The  high  spirited  anil  accomplished  Devonshire  was  named  Lord 
Steward.  No  man  had  done  more  or  risked  more  for  England 
during  the  crisis  of  her  fate.  In  retrieving  her  liberties  he  had 
retrieved  also  the  fortunes  of  his  own  house.  His  bond  for 
thirty  thousand  pounds  was  found  among  the  papers  which  James 
had  left  at  Whitehall,  and  was  cancelled  by  William. J 

Dorset  became  Lord  Chamberlain,  and  employed  the  influence 
and  patronage  annexed  to  his  functions,  as  he  had  long  employed 
his  private  means,  in  encouraging  genius  and  in  alleviating  mis- 
fortune. One  of  the  first  acts  which  he  was  under  the  neces- 
sity of  performing  must  have  been  painful  to  a  man  of  so 
generous  a  nature,  and  of  so  keen  a  relish  for  whatever  was  ex- 
cellent in  arts  and  letters.  Dryden  could  no  longer  remain  Poet 
Laureate.  The  public  would  not  have  borne  to  see  any  Papist 
among  the  servants  of  Their  Majesties  ;  and  Dryden  was  not 
only  a  Papist,  but  an  apostate.  He  had  moreover  aggravated 
the  guilt  of  his  apostasy  by  calumniating  and  ridiculing  the 
church  which  he  had  deserted.  He  had,  it  was  facetiously  said, 

*  The  Protestant  Mask  taken  off  from  the  Jeauited  Englishman,  1692- 

t  These  appointments  were  not  announced  in  the  Gazette  till  the  6th  of  May  ; 

but  some  of  them  were  made  earlier. 

t  Kennet's  Funeral  Sermon  on  the  first  Duke  of  Devonshire,  and  Memoirs  of 

the  family  of  Cavendish,  1708. 


WILLIAM   AND    MAET.  33 

treated  her  as  the  Pagan  persecutors  of  old  treated  her  children. 
He  had  dressed  her  up  in  the  skin  of  a  wild  beast,  and  then 
baited  her  for  the  public  amusement.*  He  was  removed  ;  but 
he  received  from  the  private  bounty  of  the  magnificent  Cham- 
berlain a  pension  equal  to  the  salary  which  had  been  withdrawn. 
The  deposed  Laureate,  however,  as  poor  of  spirit  as  rich  in 
intellectual  gifts,  continued,  to  complain  piteously,  year  after 
year,  of  the  losses  which  he  had  not  suffered,  till  at  length  his 
wailings  drew  forth  expressions  of  well  merited  contempt  fiom 
brave  and  honest  Jacobites,  who  had  sacrificed  everything  to 
their  principles  without  deigning  to  utter  one  word  of  depreca- 
tion or  lamentation. f 

In  the  Royal  household  were  placed  some  of  those  Dutch 
nobles  who  stood  highest  in  the  favour  of  the  King.  Bentinck 
had  the  great  office  of  Groom  of  the  Stole,  with  a  salary  of  five 
thousand  pounds  a  year.  Zulestein  took  charge  of  the  robes. 
The  Master  of  the  Horse  was  Auverquerque,  a  gallant  soldier, 
who  united  the  blood  of  Nassau  to  the  blood  of  Horn,  and  who 
wore  with  just  pride  a  costly  sword  presented  to  him  by  the 
States  General  in  acknowledgment  of  the  courage  with  which 
he  had,  on  the  bloody  day  of  Saint  Dennis,  saved  the  life  of 
William. 

The  place  of  Vice  Chamberlain  to  the  Queen  was  given  to  a 
man  who  had  just  become  conspicuous  in  public  life,  and  whose 

*  See  a  poem  entitled,  A  Votive  Tablet  to  the  King  and  Queen, 
t  See  Prior's  Dedication  of  his  Poems  to  Dorset's  son  and  successor,  and 
Dryden's  Essay  on  Satire  prefixed  to  the  translations  from  Juvenal.  There 
is  a  bitter  sneer  on  Dryden's  effeminate  querulousness  in  Collier's  Short 
View  of  the  State.  In  Blackmore's  Prince  Arthur,  a  poem  which,  worthless  as 
it  is,  contains  some  curious  allusions  to  contemporary  men  and  events,  are  the 
following  lines : 

••  The  poets'  nation  did  obsequious  wait 

For  the  kind  dole  divided  at  his  gate. 

Lauras  among  the  men<rre  crowd  appeared, 

An  old,  revolted,  unbelieving  bard. 

Who  thronged,  and  shoved,  and  pressed,  and  would  be  heard. 

8akil's  high  roof,  the  Muses'  palace,  rung 

With  endless  cries,  and  endless  songs  he  sung. 

To  bless  good  Sakil  Lannis  wouM  be  first ; 

But  Sakil's  prince  and  S  ikil's  God  he  curst, 

Sakil  without  distinction  threw  his  bread. 

Despised  the  flatterer,  hut  the  poet  fed." 

I  need  not  say  that  Sakil  is  Sackville,  or  that  Laurus  is  a  translation  of  th« 
famous  nickname  Bayes. 

VOL.  III.— 3 


34  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

name  will  frequently  recur  in  the  history  of  this  reign.  John 
Howe,  or,  as  he  was  more  commonly  called,  Jack  Howe,  had 
been  sent  up  to  the  Convention  by  the  borough  of  Cirencester. 
His  appearance  was  that  of  a  man  whose  body  was  worn  by 
the  constant  workings  of  a  restless  and  acrid  mind.  He  was 
tall,  lean,  pale,  with  a  haggard,  eager  look,  expressive  at  once 
of  flightiiiess  and  of  shrewdness.  He  had  been  known,  during 
several  years,  as  a  small  poet ;  and  some  of  the  most  savage 
lampoons  which  were  handed  about  the  coffeehouses  were  im- 
puted to  him.  But  it  was  in  the  House  of  Commons  that  both 
his  parts  and  his  illnature  were  most  signally  displayed.  Be- 
fore he  had  been  a  member  three  weeks,  his  volubility,  his 
asperity,  and  his  pertinacity  had  made  him  conspicuous.  Quick- 
ness, energy,  and  audacity,  united,  soon  raised  him  to  the  rank 
of  a  privileged  man.  His  enemies, — and  he  had  many  enemies, 
— said  that  he  consulted  his  personal  safety  even  in  his  most 
petulant  moods,  and  that  he  treated  soldiers  with  a  civility 
which  he  never  showed  to  ladies  or  to  Bishops.  But  no  man 
had  in  larger  measure  that  evil  courage  which  braves  and  even 
courts  disgust  and  hatred.  No  decencies  restrained  him  ;  his 
spite  was  implacable  :  his  skill  in  finding  out  the  vulnerable 
parts  of  strong  nihuls  was  consummate.  All  his  great  contem- 
poraries felt  his  sting  in  their  turns.  O.ice  it  inflicted  a  wound 
which  deranged  eveji  the  stern  composure  of  William,  and  con- 
strained him  to  utter  a  wish  that  he  were  a  private  gentleman, 
and  could  invite  Mr.  Howe  to  a  short^  interview  behind  Mon- 
tague House.  As  yet,  however,  Howe  was  reckoned  among  the 
most  strenuous  supporters  of  the  new  government,  and  directed 
all  his  sarcasms  and  invectives  against  the  malecontents.* 

The   subordinate  places  in  every  public  office  were   divided 
between  the  two  parties ;  but  the  Whigs  had  the  larger   share. 

*  Scarcely  any  man  of  that  age  is  more  frequently  mentioned  in  pamnhlets 
and  satires  than  Howe.  In  the  famous  Petition  of  Legion,  he  is  designated  as 
"  that  impudent  scaiid-il  of  Parliaments."  Mackay's  account  of  him  is  curious. 
In  a  poem  written  in  1690,  which  I  have  never  seen  except  in  manuscript,  are  the 
following  lines : 

"  First  for  Jack  Howe  with  his  terrible  talent, 
Happy  the  female  that  scapes  his  lampoon  ; 
Agp.inst  the  ladies  excessively  valiant, 
But  very  respectful  to  a  Dragoon." 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  35 

Some  persons,  indeed,  who  did  little  honour  to  the  Whig  name, 
were  largely  recompensed  for  services  which  no  good  man 
would  have  performed.  Wildman  was  made  Postmaster  Gen- 
eral. A  lucrative  sinecure  iii  the  Excise  was  bestowed  on  Fer- 
guson. The  duties  of  the  Solicitor  of  the  Treasury-  were  very 
important  and  very  invidious.  It  was  the  business  of  that  offi- 
cer to  conduct  political  prosecutions,  to  collect  the  evidence,  to 
instruct  the  counsel  for  the  Crown,  to  see  that  the  prisoners 
were  not  liberated  on  insufficient  bail,  to  see  that  the  juries 
were  not  composed  of  persons  hostile  to  the  government.  In 
the  days  of  Charles  and  James,  the  Solicitor  of  the  Treasury 
had  been,  with  too  much  reason,  accused  of  employing  all  the 
vilest  artifices  of  chicanery  against  men  obnoxious  to  the  Court. 
The  new  government  ought  to  have  made  a  choice  which  was 
above  all  suspicion.  Uutortuuately  Mordaunt  and  Delarneve 
pitched  upon  Aaron  Smith,  an  acrimonious  and  unprincipled 
politician,  who  had  been  the  legal  adviser  of  Titus  Gates  in  the 
days  of  the  Popish  plot,  and  who  had  been  deeply  implicated 
in  the  Rye  House  plot  Richard  Hampden,  a  man  of  decided 
opinions,  but  of  moderate  temper,  objected  to  this  appointment. 
His  objections  however  were  overruled.  The  Jacobites,  who 
hated  Smith  and  had  reason  to  hate  him,  affirmed  that  he  had 
obtained  his  place  by  bullying  the  Lords  of  the  Treasury,  and 
particularly  by  threatening  that,  if  his  just  claims  were  disre- 
garded, he  would  be  the  death  of  Hampden.* 

Some  weeks  elapsed  before  all  the  arrangements  which 
have  been  mentioned  were  publicly  announced :  and  mean- 
while many  important  events  had  taken  place.  As  soon  as  the 
new  Privy  Councillors  had  been  sworn  in,  it  was  necessary  to 
submit  to  them  a  grave  and  pressing  question.  Could  the  Con- 
vention now  assembled  be  turned  into  a  Parliament  ?  The  Whigs, 
who  had  a  decided  majority  in  the  Lower  House,  were  all  for 
the  affirmative.  The  Tories,  who  knew  that,  within  the  last 
month,  the  public  feeling  had  undergone  a  considerable  change, 
and  who  hoped  that  a  general  election  would  add  to  their 

*  Sprat's  True  Account ;  North's  Examen ;    Letter  to  Chief  Justice  Holt, 
1604  ;  Letter  to  Secretary  Trenchard,  1694. 


36  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

strength,  were  for  the  negative.  They  maintained  that  to  the 
existence  of  a  Parliament  royal  writs  were  indispensably  neces- 
sary. The  Convention  had  not  been  summoned  by  such  writs  : 
the  original  defect  could  not  now  be  supplied  :  the  Houses  were 
therefore  mere  clubs  of  private  men,  and  ought  instantly  to 
disperse. 

It  was  answered  that  the  royal  writ  was  mere  matter  of  form, 
and  that  to  expose  the  substance  of  our  laws  and  liberties  to 
serious  hazard  for  the  sake  of  a  form  would  be  the  most  sense- 
less superstition.  "Wherever  the  Sovereign,  the  Peers  spiritual 
and  temporal,  and  the  Representatives  freely  chosen  by  the 
constituent  bodies  of  the  realm  were  met  together,  there  was  the 
essence  of  a  Parliament.  Such  a  Parliament  was  now  in  being  ; 
and  what  could  be  more  absurd  than  to  dissolve  it  at  a  conjunc- 
ture when  every  hour  was  precious,  when  numerous  important 
subjects  required  immediate  legislation,  and  when  dangers,  only 
to  be  averted  by  the  combined  efforts  of  King,  Lords,  and 
Commons,  menaced  the  state  ?  A  Jacobite  indeed  might  con- 
sistently refuse  to  recognise  the  Convention  as  a  Parliament. 
For  he  held  that  it  had  from  the  beginning  been  an  unlawful 
assembly,  that  all  its  resolutions  were  nullities,  and  that  the 
Sovereigns  whom  it  had  set  up  were  usurpers.  But  with  what 
consistency  could  any  man,  who  maintained  that  a  new  Parlia- 
ment ought  to  be  immediately  called  by  writs  under  the  great 
seal  of  "William  and  Mary,  question  the  authority  which  had 
placed  William  and  Mary  on  the  throne?  Those  who  held  that 
William  was  rightful  King  must  necessarily  hold  that  the  body 
from  which  he  derived  his  right  was  itself  a  rightful  Great 
Council  of  the  Realm.  Those  who,  though  not  holding  him  to 
be  rightful  King,  conceived  that  they  might  lawfully  sweqr 
allegiance  to  him  as  King  in  fact,  might  surely,  on  the  same 
principle,  acknowledge  the  Convention  as  a  Parliament  in  fact. 
It  was  plain  that  the  Convention  was  the  fountainhead  from 
which  the  authority  of  all  future  Parliaments  must  be  derived, 
and  that  on  the  validity  of  the  votes  of  the  Convention  must 
depend  the  validity  of  every  future  statute.  And  how  could  the 
stream  rise  higher  than  the  source  ?  Was  it  not  absurd  to  say 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  37 

that  the  Convention  was  supreme  in  the  state,  and  yet  a  nullity  ; 
a  legislature  for  the  highest  of  all  purposes,  and  yet  no  legisla- 
ture for  the  humblest  purposes  ;  competent  to  declare  the  throne 
vacant,  to  change  the  succession,  to  fix  the  landmarks  of  the 
constitution,  and  yet  not  competent  to  pass  the  most  trivial  Act 
for  the  repairing  of  a  pier  or  the  building  of  a  parish  church  ? 

These  arguments  would  have  had  considerable  weight,  even 
if  every  precedent  had  been  on  the  other  side.  But  in  truth  our 
history  afforded  only  one  precedent  which  was  at  all  in  point ; 
and  that  precedent  was  decisive  in  favour  of  the  doctrine  that 
royal  writs  are  not  indispensably  necessary  to  the  existence  of  a 
Parliament.  No  royal  writ  had  summoned  the  Convention  which 
recalled  Charles  the  Second.  Yet  that  Convention  had,  after 
his  Restoration,  continued  to  sit  and  to  legislate,  had  settled  the 
revenue,  had  passed  an  Act  of  amnesty,  had  abolished  the  feudal 
tenures.  These  proceedings  had  been  sanctioned  by  authority  of 
which  no  party  in  the  state  could  speak  without  reverence. 
Hale,  a  jurist  held  in  honour  by  every  Whig,  had  borne  a  con- 
siderable share  in  them,  and  had  always  maintained  that  they 
were  strictly  legal.  Clarendon,  a  statesman  whose  memory  was 
respected,  by  the  great  body  of  Tories,  little  as  he  was  inclined 
to  favour  any  doctrine  derogatory  to  the  rights  of  the  Crown, 
or  to  the  dignity  of  that  seal  of  which  he  was  keeper,  had  declar- 
ed that,  since  God  had,  at  a  most  critical  conjuncture,  given  the 
nation  a  good  Parliament,  it  would  be  the  height  of  folly  to 
look  for  technical  flaws  in  the  instrument  by  which  that  Parlia- 
ment was  called  together.  Would  it  be  pretended  that  the  Con- 
vention of  1660  had  a  more  respectable  origin  than  the 
Convention  of  1689?  Was  not  a  letter  written  by  the  first 
Prince  of  the  Blood,  at  the  request  of  the  whole  peerage,  and  of 
hundreds  of  gentlemen  who  had  represented  counties  and  towns, 
at  least  as  good  a  warrant  as  a  vote  of  the  Rump  ?  * 

Weaker  reasons  than  these  would  have  satisfied  the  Whigs 
who  formed  the  majority  of  the  Privy  Council.  The  King, 
therefore,  on  the  fifth  day  after  he  had  been,  proclaimed,  went 
with  royal  state  to  the  House  of  Lords,  and  took  hi.s  seat  on 
the  throne.  The  Commons  were  called  in ;  and  he,  with 


38  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

many  gracious  expressions,  reminded  his  hearers  of  the  perilous 
situation  of  the  country,  and  exhorted  them  to  take  such  steps 
as  might  prevent  unnecessary  delay  in  the  transaction  of  public 
business.  His  speech  was  received  by  the  gentlemen  who 
crowded  the  bar  with  the  deep  hum  by  which  our  ancestors 
were, wont  to  indicate  approbation,  and  which  was  often  heard 
in  places  more  sacred  than  the  Chamber  of  the  Peers.*  As 
soon  as  he  had  retired,  a  Bill  declaring  the  Convention  a  Par- 
liament was  laid  on  the  table  of  the  Lords,  and  rapidly  passed 
by  them.  In  the  Commons  the  debates  were  warm.  The 
House  resolved  itself  into  a  Committee  ;  and  so  great  was  the 
excitement  that,  when  the  authority  of  the  Speaker  was  with- 
drawn, it  was  hardly  possible  to  preserve  order.  Sharp  per- 
sonalities were  exchanged.  The  phrase,  "  Hear  him,"  a  phrase 
which  had  originally  been  used  only  to  silence  irregular  noises, 
and  to  remind  members  of  the  duty  of  attending  to  the  discus- 
sion, had,  during  some  years,  been  gradually  becoming  what  it 
now  is  ;  that  is  to  say,  a  cry  indicative,  according  to  the  tone,  of 
admiration,  acquiescence,  indignation,  or  derision.  On  this  oc- 
casion, the  Whigs  vociferated  "  Hear,  hear,"  so  tumultuously 
that  the  Tories  complained  of  unfair  usage.  Seymour,  the  leader 
of  the  minority,  declared  that  there  could  be  no  freedom  of  de- 
bate while  such  clamour  was  tolerated.  Some  old  Whig  members 
were  provoked  into  reminding  him  that  the  same  clamour  had 
occasionally  been  heard  when  he  presided,  and  had  not  then 
been  repressed.  Yet,  eager  and  angry  as  both  sides  were,  the 
speeches  on  both  sides  indicated  that  profound  reverence  for 
law  and  prescription  which  has  long  been  characteristic  of  Eng- 
lishmen, and  which,  though  it  sometimes  runs  into  pedantry 
and  sometimes  into  superstition,  is  not  without  its  advantages. 
Even  at  that  momentous  crisis,  when  the  nation  was  still  in  the 
ferment  of  a  revolution,  our  public  men  talked  long  and  seri- 
ously about  all  the  circumstances  of  the  deposition  of  Edward 
the  Second,  and  of  the  deposition  of  Richard  the  Second, 
and  anxiously  enquired  whether  the  assembly  which,  with 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  39 

Archbishop  Lanfranc  at  its  head,  set  aside  Robert  of  Nor- 
mandy, and  put  William  Rufus  on  the  throne,  did  or  did  not 
afterwards  continue  to  act  as  the  legislature  of  the  realm. 
Much  was  said  about  the  history  of  writs  ;  much  about  the  ety- 
mology of  the  word  Parliament.  It  is  remarkable,  that  the 
orator  who  took  the  most  statesmanlike  view  of  the  subject  was 
old  Maynard.  In  the  civil  conflicts  of  £fty  eventful  years  he 
had  learned  that  questions  affecting  the  highest  interests  of  the 
commonwealth  were  not  to  be  decided  by  verbal  cavils  and  by 
scraps  of  Law  French  and  Law  Latin  ;  and,  being  by  universal 
acknowledgment  the  most  subtle  and  the  most  learned  of 
English  jurists,  he  could  express  what  he  felt  without  the  risk  of 
being  accused  of  ignorance  and  presumption.  He  scornfully 
thrust  aside  as  frivolous  and  out  of  place  all  that  blackletter 
learning,  which  some  men,  far  less  versed  in  such  matters  than 
himself,  had  introduced  into  the  discussion.  "  We  are,"  he  said, 
"  at  this  moment  out  of  the  beaten  path.  If  therefore  we  are 
determined  to  move  only  in  that  path,  we  cannot  move  at  all.  A 
man  in  a  revolution  resolving  to  do  nothing  which  is  not  strictly 
according  to  established  form  resembles  a  man  who  has  lost 
himself  in  the  wilderness,  and  who  stands  crying  '  Where  is 
the  king's  highway  ?  I  will  walk  nowhere  but  on  the  king's  high- 
way.' In  a  wilderness  a  man  should  take  the  track  which  will 
carry  him  home.  In  a  revolution  we  must  have  recourse  to  the 
highest  law,  the  safety  of  the  state."  Another  veteran  Round- 
head, Colonel  Birch,  took  the  same  side,  and  argued  with  great 
force  and  keenness  from  the  precedent  of  1G60.  Seymour  and 
his  supporters  were  beaten  in  the  Committee,  and  did  not  ven- 
ture to  divide  the  House  on  the  report.  The  Bill  passed 
rapidly,  and  received  the  royal  assent  on  the  tenth  day  after  the 
accession  of  William  and  Mary.* 

The  law  which  turned  the  Convention  into  a  Parliament  con- 
tained a  clause  providing  that  no  person  should,  after  the  first 
of  March,  sit  or  vote  in  either  House  without  taking  the  oaths 

*  Stat.  1  W.  &  M.  cess.  i.  c.  1.  See  the  Journals  of  the  two  Houses,  and 
Grey's  Debates-  The  argument  in  favour  of  the  Mil  id  well  stated  in  the  Paris 
Gazettes  of  March  5,  and  1C,  1689. 


40  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

to  the  new  King  and  Queen.  This  enactment  produced  great 
agitation  throughout  society.  The  adherents  of  the  exiled  dy- 
nasty hoped  and  confidently  predicted  that  the  recusants  would 
be  numerous.  The  minority  in  both  Houses,  it  was  said,  would 
be  true  to  the  cause  of  hereditary  monarchy.  There  might  be 
here  and  there  a  traitor  ;  but  the  great  body  of  those  who  had 
voted  for  a  Regency  would  be  firm.  Only  two  Bishops  at  most 
would  recognise  the  ursurpers.  Seymour  would  retire  from 
public  life  rather  than  abjure  has  principles.  Grafton  had 
determined  to  fly  to  France  and  throw  himself  at  the  feet  of  his 
uncle.  With  such  rumours  as  these  all  the  coffeehouses  of  Lon- 
don were  filled  during  the  latter  part  of  February.  So  intense 
was  the  public  anxiety  that,  if  any  man  of  rank  was  missed, 
two  days  running,  at  his  usual  haunts,  it  was  immediately  whis- 
pered that  he  had  stolen  away  to  Saint  Germains.* 

The  second  of  March  arrived ;  and  the  event  quieted  the 
fears  of  one  party,  and  confounded  the  hopes  of  the  other.  The 
Primate  indeed  and  several  of  his  suffragans  stood  obstinately 
aloof:  but  three  Bishops  and  seventy-three  temporal  peers  took 
the  oaths.  At  the  next  meeting  of  the  Upper  House  several 
more  prelates  came  in.  Within  a  week  about  a  hundred  Lords 
had  qualified  themselves  to  sit.  Others,  who  were  prevented  by 
illness  from  appearing,  sent  excuses  and  professions  of  attach- 
ment to  their  Majesties.  Grafton  refuted  all  the  stories  which 
had  been  circulated  about  him  by  coming  to  be  sworn  on  the 
first  day.  Two  members  of  the  Ecclesiastical  Commission, 
Mulgrave  and  Sprat,  hastened  to  make  atonement  for  their  fault- 
by  plighting  their  faith  to  William.  Beaufort,  who  had  long 
been  considered  as  the  type  of  a  royalist  of  the  old  school,  sub- 
mitted after  a  very  short  hesitation.  Ailesbury  and  Dartmouth 
had  as  little  scruple  about  taking  the  oath  of  allegiance  as  they 
afterwards  had  about  breaking  it.f  The  Hydes  took  different 
paths.  Rochester  complied  with  the  law  ;  but  Clarendon  proved 
refractory.  Many  thought  it  strange  that  the  brother  who  had 

*  Both  Van  Citters  and  Ronquillo  mention  the  anxiety  which  was  felt  in  Lon- 
don till  the  result  was  known. 

t  Lords'  Journals,  March  1688-9. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  41 

adhered  to  James  till  James  absconded  should  be  less  sturdy 
thaa  the  brother  who  had  been  in  the  Dutch  cainp.  The  ex- 
planation perhaps  is  that  Rochester  would  have  sacrificed  much 
more  than  Clarendon  by  refusing  to  take  the  oaths.  Claren- 
don's income  did  not  depend  on  the  pleasure  of  the  Govern-, 
ment:  but  Rochester  had  a  pension  of  four  thousand  a  year, 
which  he  could  not  hope  to  retain  if  he  refused  to  acknowledge 
the  new  Sovereigns.  Indeed,  he  had  so  many  enemies  that,  dur- 
ing some  months,  it  seemed  doubtful  whether  he  would,  on  ai:y 
terms,  be  suffered  to  retain  the  splendid  reward  which  he  had 
earned  bj»  persecuting  the  Whigs  and  by  sitting  in  the  High 
Commission.  He  was  saved  from  what  would  have  been  a  fatal 
blow  to  his  fortunes  by  the  intercession  of  Burnet,  who  had 
been  deeply  injured  by  him,  and  who  revenged  himself  as  be- 
came a  Christian  divine.* 

In  the  Lower  House  four  hundred  members  were  sworn  in 
on  the  second  of  March  ;  and  among  them  was  Seymour.  The 
spirit  of  the  Jacobites  was  broken  by  his  defection  ;  and  the 
minority,  with  very  few  exceptions,  followed  his  example. f 

Before  the  day  fixed  for  the  taking  of  the  oaths,  the  Com- 
mons had  begun  to  discuss  a  momentous  question  which  admit- 
ted of  no  delay.  During  the  interregnum,  William  had,  as  pro- 
visional chief  of  the  administration,  collected  the  taxes  and  ap- 
plied them  to  the  public  service  ;  nor  could  the  propriety  of 
this  course  be  questioned  by  any  person  who  approved  of  the 
Revolution.  But  the  Revolution  was  now  over :  the  vacancy 
of  the  throne  had  been  supplied  :  the  Houses  were  sitting :  the 
law  was  in  full  force  ;  and  it  became  necessary  immediately  to 
decide  to  what  revenue  the  Government  was  entitled. 

It  was  not  denied  that  all  the  lands  and  hereditaments  of 
the  Crown  had  passed  with  the  Crown  to  the  new  Sovereigns. 
It  was  not  denied  that  all  duties  which  had  been  granted  to  the 

*  See  the  letters  of  Kochester  and  of  Lady  Ranelagh  to  Burnet  on  this  occa- 
sion. 

t  Journals  of  the  Commons,  March  2,  1688-9.  Ronquillo  wrote  as  follows  : 
"  Es  da  gran  consideration  quo  Seimor  haya  tornado  el  juxamento  ;  porque  es  el 
arrengador  y  cl  director  principal,  en  la  casa  do  los  Comunes,  de  los  Anglicanos." 
March  8-18, 1688-9. 


42  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Crown  for  a  fixed  term  of  years  might  be  constitutionally  ex- 
acted till  that  term  should  expire.  But  large  revenues  had 
been  settled  by  Parliament  on  James  for  life  ;  and  whether 
what  had  been  settled  on  James  for  life  could,  while  he  lived, 
be  claimed  by  William  and  Mary,  was  a  question  about  which 
opinions  were  divided. 

Holt,  Treby,  Pollexfen,  indeed  all  the  eminent  Whig  law- 
yers, Somers  excepted,  held  that  these  revenues  had  been  grant- 
ed to  the  late  King,  in  his  political  capacity,  but  for  his  natural 
life,  and  ought  therefore,  as  long  as  he  continued  to  drag  on  his 
existence  in  a  strange  land,  to  be  paid  to  William  ai^d  Mary.  It 
appears  from  a  very  concise  and  unconnected  report  of  the  de- 
bate that  Somers  dissented  from  this  doctrine.  His  opinion 
was  that,  if  the  Act  of  Parliament  which  had  imposed  the  du- 
ties in  question  was  to  be  construed  according  to  the  spirit,  the 
word  life  must  be  understood  to  mean  reign,  and  that  therefore 
the  term  for  which  the  grant  had  been  made  had  expired.  This 
was  surely  the  sound  opinion  :  for  it  was  plainly  irrational  to 
treat  the  interest  of  James  in  this  grant  as  at  once  a  thing  an- 
nexed to  his  person  and  a  thing  annexed  to  his  office  ;  to  say  in 
the  same  breath  that  the  merchants  of  London  and  Bristol  must 
pay  money  because  he  was  in  one  sense  alive,  and  that  his  suc- 
cessors must  receive  that  money  because  he  was  in  another 
sense  defunct.  The  House  was  decidedly  with  Somers.  The 
members  generally  were  bent  on  effecting  a  great  reform,  with- 
out which  it  was  felt  that  the  Declaration  of  Right  would  be 
but  an  imperfect  guarantee  for  public  liberty.  During  the  con- 
flict which  fifteen  successive  Parliaments  had  maintained  against 
four  successive  Kings,  the  chief  weapon  of  the  Commons  had 
been  the  power  of  the  purse;  nor  had  the  representatives  of 
the  people  ever  been  induced  to  surrender  that  weapon  with- 
out having  speedy  cause  to  repent  of  their  too  credulous  loyalty. 
In  the  season  of  tumultuous  joy  which  followed  the  Restora- 
tion, a  large  revenue  for  life  had  been  almost  by  acclamation 
granted  to  Charles  the  Second.  A  few  months  later  there  was 
scarcely  a  respectable  Cavalier  in  the  kingdom  who  did  not  own 
that  the  stewards  of  the  nation  would  have  acted  more  wisely  if 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  43 

they  had  kept  in  their  hands  the  means  of  checking  the  abuses 
which  disgraced  every  department  of  the  government.  James 
the  Second  had  obtained  from  his  submissive  Parliament,  with- 
out a  dissentient  voice,  an  income  amply  sufficient  to  defray  the 
ordinary  expenses  of  the  state  during  his  life ;  and,  before  he 
had  enjoyed  that  income  half  a  year,  the  great  majority  of  those 
who  had  dealt  thus  liberally  with  him  blamed  themselves  se- 
verely for  their  liberality.  If  experience  was  to  be  trusted,  a 
long  and  painful  experience,  there  could  be  no  effectual  security 
against  maladministration,  unless  the  Sovereign  were  under  the 
necessity  of  recurring  frequently  to  his  Great  Council  for  pecu- 
niary aid.  Almost  all  honest  and  enlightened  men  were  there- 
fore agreed  in  thinking  that  a  part  at  least  of  the  supplies  ought 
to  be  granted  only  for  a  short  term.  And  what  time  could  be 
fitter  for  the  introduction  of  this  new  practice  than  the  year 
1689,  the  commencement  of  a  new  reign,  of  a  new  dynasty,  of 
a  new  era  of  constitutional  government?  The  feeling  on  this 
subject  was  so  strong  and  general  that  the  dissentient  minority 
gave  way.  No  formal  resolution  was  passed :  but  the  House 
proceeded  to  act  on  the  supposition  that  the  grants  which  had 
been  made  to  James  for  life  had  been  annulled  by  his  abdica- 
tion.* 

It  was  impossible  to  make  a  new  settlement  of  the  revenue 
without  enquiry  and  deliberation.  The  Exchequer  was  ordered 
to  furnish  such  returns  as  might  enable  the  House  to  form  es- 
timates of  the  public  expenditure  and  income.  In  the  meantime, 
liberal  provision  was  made  for  the  immediate  exigencies  of  the 
state.  An  extraordinary  aid,  to  be  raised  by  direct  monthly  as- 
sessment, was  voted  to  the  King.  An  Act  was  passed  indem- 
nifying all  who  had,  since  his  landing,  collected  by  his  authority 
the  duties  settled  on  James ;  and  those  duties  which  had  ex- 
pired were  continued  for  some  months. 

Along  William's  whole  line  of  march,  from  Torbay  to  Lon- 
don, he  had  been  importuned  by  the  common  people  to  relieve 
them  from  the  intolerable  burden  of  the  hearth  money.  In  truth, 
that  tax  seems  to  have  united  all  the  worst  evils  which  can  bo 

*  Grey's  Debates,  Feb.  23,  26,  and  27,  1688-9. 


44  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

imputed  to  any  tax.  It  was  unequal,  and  unequal  in  the  most 
pernicious  way  :  for  it  pressed  heavily  on  the  poor  and  lightly 
on  the  rich.  A  peasant,  all  whose  property  was  not  worth 
twenty  pounds,  had  to  pay  several  shillings,  while  the  mansion 
of  an  opulent  nobleman  in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields  or  St.  James's 
Square  was  seldom  assessed  at  two  guineas.  The  collectors  were 
empowered  to  examine  the  interior  of  every  house  in  the  realm, 
to  disturb  families  at  meals,  to  force  the  doors  of  bedrooms,  and, 
if  the  sum  demanded  were  not  punctually  paid,  to  sell  the 
trencher  on  which  the  barley  loaf  was  divided  among  the  poor 
children,  and  the  pillow  from  under,  the  head  of  the  lying-in  wo- 
man. Nor  could  the  Treasury  effectually  restrain  the  chimney- 
man  from  using  his  powers  with  harshness  ;  for  the  tax  was 
farmed  ;  and  the  Government  was  consequently  forced  to  con- 
nive at  outrages  and  exactions  such  as  have,  in  every  age,  made 
the  name  of  publican  a  proverb  for  all  that  is  most  hateful. 

William  had  been  so  much  moved  by  what  he  had  heard  of 
these  grievances  that,  at  one  of  the  earliest  sittings  of  the  Privy 
Council,  he  introduced  the  subject.  He  sent  a  message  request- 
ing the  House  of  Commons  to  consider  whether  better  regula- 
tions would  effectually  prevent  the  abuses  which  had  excited  so 
much  discontent.  He  added  that  he  would  willingly  consent  to 
the  entire  abolition  of  the  tax  if  it  should  appear  that  the  tax 
and  the  abuses  were  inseparable.*  This  communication  was  re- 
ceived with  loud  applause.  There  were  indeed  some  financiers 
of  the  old  school  who  muttered  that  tenderness  for  the  poor  was 
a  fine  thing,  but  that  no  part  of  the  revenue  of  the  state  came  in 
so  exactly  to  the  day  as  the  hearth  money ;  that  the  goldsmiths 
of  the  City  could  not  always  be  induced  to  lend  on  the  security 
of  the  next  quarter's  customs  or  excise,  but  that  on  an  assign- 
ment of  hearth  money  there  was  no  difficulty  in  obtaining  ad- 
vances. In  the  House  of  Commons,  those  who  thought  thus 
did  not  venture  to  raise  their  voices  in  opposition  to  the  gen- 
eral feeling.  But  in  the  Lords  there  was  a  conflict  of  which 
the  event  for  a  time  seemed  doubtful.  At  length  the  influence 
of  the  Court, strenuously  exerted,  carried  an  Act  by  which  the 
*  Commons'  Journals,  and  Grey's  Debates,  March  1, 1688-9. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  45 

chimney  tax  was  declared  a  badge  of  slavery,  and  was,  with 
many  expressions  of  gratitude  to  the  King,  abolished  for  ever.* 

The  Commons  granted,  with  little  dispute,  and  without  a 
division,  six  hundred  thousand  pounds  for  the  purpose  of  repay- 
ing to  the  United  Provinces  the  charges  of  the  expedition  which 
had  delivered  England.  The  facility  with  which  this  large  sum 
was  voted  to  a  shrewd,  diligent,  and  thrifty  people,  our  allies, 
indeed,  politically,  but  commercially  our  most  formidable  rivals, 
excited  some  murmurs  out  of  doors,  and  was,  during  many  years, 
a  favourite  subject  of  sarcasm  with  Tory  pamphleteers.f  The 
liberality  of  the  House  admits  however  of  an  easy  explanation. 
On  the  very  day  on  which  the  subject  was  under  consideration, 
alarming  news  arrived  at  Westminster,  and  convinced  many, 
who  would  at  another  time  have  been  disposed  to  scrutinise 
severely  any  account  sent  in  by  the  Dutch,  that  our  country 
could  not  yet  dispense  with  the  services  of  the  foreign  troops. 

France  had  declared  war  against  the  States  General  and  the 
States  General  had  consequently  demanded  from  the  King  of 
England  those  succours  which  he  was  bound  by  the  treaty  of 
Nimeguen  to  furnish.!  He  had  ordered  some  battalions  to 
march  to  Harwich,  that  they  might  be  in  readiness  to  cross  to 
the  Continent.  The  old  soldiers  of  James  were  generally  in  a 
very  bad  temper,  and  this  order  did  not  produce  a  soothing 
effect.  The  discontent  was  greatest  in  the  regiment  which  now 
ranks  as  the  first  of  the  line.  Though  borne  on  the  English 
establishment,  that  regiment,  from  the  time  when  it  first  fought 
under  the  great  Gustavus,  had  been  almost  exclusively  composed 
of  Scotchmen  ;  and  Scotchmen  have  never,  in  any  region  to 
which  their  adventurous  and  aspiring  temper  has  led  them,  failed 
to  note  and  to  resent  every  slight  offered  to  Scotland.  Officers 
and  men  muttered  that  a  vote  of  a  foreign  assembly  was  nothing 
to  them.  If  they  could  be  absolved  from  their  allegiance  to 

»  1 W.  &  M.  sess.  i.  c.  10 ;  Burnet.  ii.  13. 

t  Commons'  Journals,  March  15,  1688-9.    So  late  as  1713,  Arbuthnot,  in  the 
fifth  part  of  John  Bull,  alluded  to  this  transaction  with  much  pleasantry.    "As 
to  your  Venire  Facias,"  says  John  to  Xick  Frog,  "  I  have  paid  you  for  one  al- 
ready." 
•    t  Wagenaar,  IxL 


46  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND 

King  James  the  Seventh,  it  must  be  by  the  Estates  at  Edin- 
burgh, and  not  by  the  Convention  at  Westminster.  Their  ill 
humour  increased  when  they  heard  that  Schomberg  had  been 
appointed  their  colonel.  They  ought  perhaps  to  have  thought 
it  an  honour  to  be  called  by  the  name  of  the  greatest  soldier  in 
(Europe.  But,  brave  and  skilful  as  he  was,  he  was  not  their 
countryman ;  and  their  regiment,  during  the  fifty-six  years 
which  had  elapsed  since  it  gained  its  first  honourable  distinc- 
tions in  Germany,  had  never  been  commanded  but  by  a  Hep- 
burn or  a  Douglas.  While  they  were  in  this  angry  and 
punctilious  mood,  they  were  ordered  to  join  the  forces  which 
were  assembling  at  Harwich.  There  was  much  murmuring ; 
but  there  was  no  outbreak  till  the  regiment  arrived  at  Ipswich. 
There  the  signal  of  revolt  was  given  by  two  captains  who  were 
zealous  for  the  exiled  King.  The  market  place  was  soon  filled 
with  pikemen  and  musketeers  running  to  and  fro.  Gunshots 
were  wildly  fired  in  all  directions.  Those  officers  who  attempted 
to  restrain  the  rioters  were  overpowered  and  disarmed.  At  length 
the  chiefs  of  the  insurrection  established  some  order,  and 
marched  out  of  Ipswich  at  the  head  of  their  adherents.  The 
little  army  consisted  of  about  eight  hundred  men.  They  had 
seized  four  pieces  of  cannon,  and  had  taken  possession  of  the 
military  chest,  which  contained  a  considerable  sum  of  money. 
At  the  distance  of  half  a  mile  from  the  town  a  halt  was  called  : 
a  general  consultation  was  held ;  and  the  mutineers  resolved 
that  they  would  hasten  back  to  their  native  country,  and  would 
live  and  die  with  their  rightful  King.  They  instantly  proceeded 
northward  by  forced  marches.* 

When  the  news  reached  London  the  dismay  was  great. 
It  was  rumoured  that  alarming  symptoms  had  appeared  in 
other  regiments,  and  particularly  that  a  body  of  fusileers 
which  lay  at  Harwich  was  likely  to  imitate  the  example  set  at 
Ipswich.  "If  these  Scots,"  said  Halifax  to  Reresby,  "are 
unsupported,  they  are  lost.  But  if  they  are  acting  in  concert 
with  others,  the  danger  is  serious  indeed."  f  The  truth  seems 
to  be  that  there  was  a  conspiracy  which  had  ramifications  in 

*  Commons'  Journals,  March  15,  1688-9.  t  Keresby's  Memoirs. 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  47 

many  parts  of  the  army,  but  that  the  conspirators  were  awed 
by  the  firmness  of  the  Government  and  of  the  Parliament.  A 
committee  of  the  Privy  Council  was  sitting  when  the  tidings  of 
the  mutiny  arrived  in  London.  William  liarbord,  who  repre- 
sented the  borough  of  Launceston,  was  at  the  board.  His  col- 
leagues eutreated  him  to  go  down  instantly  to  the  House  of 
Commons,  and  to  relate  what  had  happened.  He  went,  rose  in. 
his  place,  and  told  his  story.  The  spirit  of  the  assembly  rose 
to  the  occasion.  Howe  was  the  first  to  call  for  vigorous  action. 
"  Address  the  King,"  he  said,  "  to  send  his  Dutch  troops  after 
these  men.  I  know  not  who  else  can  be  trusted."  "  This  is  no 
jesting  matter,"  said  old  Birch,  who  had  been  a  colonel  in  the 
service  of  the  Parliament,  and  had  seen  the  most  powerful  and 
renowned  House  of  Commons  that  ever  sate  twice  purged  and 
twice  expelled  by  its  own  soldiers ;  ';  if  you  let  this  evil  spread, 
you  will  have  an  army  upon  you  in  a  few  days.  Address  the 
King  to  send  horse  and  foot  instantly,  his  own  men,  men  whom 
he  can  trust,  and  to  put  these  people  down  at  once."  The  men 
of  the  long  robe  caught  the  flame.  u  It  is  not  the  learning  of 
my  profession  that  is  needed  here,"  said  Treby.  "  What  is*  now 
to  be  done  is  to  meet  force  with  force,  and  to  maintain  in  the 
field  what  we  have  done  in  the  senate."  "  Write  to  the  Sher- 
iffs," said  Colonel  Mildmay,  member  for  Essex.  "  Raise  the 
militia.  There  are  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  of  them  :  they 
are  good  Englishmen  :  they  will  not  fail  you."  It  was  resolved 
that  all  members  of  the  House  who  held  commissions  in  the 
army  should  be  dispensed  from  parliamentary  attendance,  in 
order  that  they  might  repair  instantly  to  their  military  posts. 
An  address  was  unanimously  voted  requesting  the-  King  to  take 
effectual  steps  for  the  suppression  of  the  rebellion,  and  to  put 
forth  a  proclamation  denouncing  public  vengeance  on  the  rebels. 
One  gentleman  hinted  that  it  might  be  well  to  advise  His 
Majesty  to  offer  a  pardon  to  those  who  should  peaceably  sub- 
mit :  but  the  House  wisely  rejected  the  suggestion.  "  This  is 
no  time,"  it  was  well  said,  "  for  anything  that  looks  like  fear." 
The  address  was  instantly  sent  up  to  the  Lords.  The  Lords 
concurred  in  it.  Two  peers,  two  knights  of  shires,  and  two 


48  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

burgesses  were  sent  with  it  to  Court.  William  received  them 
graciously,  and  informed  them  that  he  had  already  given  the 
necessary  orders.  In  fact,  several  regiments  of  horse  and  dra- 
goons had  been  sent  northwards  under  the  command  of  Ginkell, 
one  of  the  bravest  and  ablest  officers  of  the  Dutch  armj^.* 

Meanwhile  the  mutineers  were  hastening  across  the  country 
which  lies  between  Cambridge  and  the  Wash.  Their  way  lay 
through  a  vast  and  desolate  fen,  saturated  with  the  moisture  of 
thirteen  counties,  and  overhung  during  the  greater  part  of  the 
year  by  a  low  grey  mist,  high  above  which  rose,  visible  many 
miles,  the  magnificent  tower  of  Ely.  In  that  dreary  region, 
covered  by  vast  nights  of  wild  fowl,  a  half  savage  population, 
known  by  the  name  of  the  Breedlings,  then  led  an  amphibious 
life,  sometimes  wading,  and  sometimes  rowing,  from  one  islet  of 
firm  ground  to  another.f  The  roads  were  among  the  worst  in 
the  island,  and,  as  soon  as  rumour  announced  the  approach  of 
the  rebels,  were  studiously  made  worse  by  the  country  people. 
Bridges  were  broken  down.  Trees  were  laid  across  the  high- 
ways to  obstruct  the  progress  of  the  cannon.  Nevertheless  the 
Scotch  veterans  not  only  pushed  forward  with  great  speed,  but 
succeeded  in  carrying  their  artillery  with  them.  They  entered 
Lincolnshire,  and  were  not  far  from  Sleaford,  when  they  learned 
that  Ginkell  with  an  irresistible  force  was  close  on  their  track. 
Victory  and  escape  were  equally  out  of  the  question.  The 
bravest  warriors  could  not  contend  against  fourfold  odds.  The 
most  active  infantry  could  not  outrun  horsemen.  Yet  the 
leaders,  probably  despairing  of  pardon,  urged  the  men  to  try 
the  chance  of  battle.  In  that  region,  a  spot  almost  surrounded 
by  swamps  and  pools  was  without  difficulty  found.  Here  the 
insurgents  were  drawn  up ;  and  the  cannon  were  planted  at  the 
only  point  which  was  thought  not  to  be  sufficiently  protected  by 
natural  defences.  Ginkell  ordered  the  attack  to  be  made  at  a 
place  which  was  out  of  the  range,  of  the  guns ;  and  his  dragoons 

*  Commons'  Journals,  and  Grey's  Debates,  March  15, 1688-9 ;  London  Ga- 
zette, March  18. 

t  As  to  the  state  of  this  region  in  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  and  the 
earlier  part  of  the  eighteenth  century,  see  Pepys's  Diary.  Sept  18,  1CC3,  and  tho 
Tour  through  the  whole  Islaiid  of  Great  Britain,  1724. 


WILLIAM   AND   MARY.  49 

dashed  gallantly  into  the  water,  though  it  was  so  deep  that 
their  horses  were  forced  to  swim.  Then  the  mutineers  lost 
heart.  They  beat  a  parley,  surrendered  at  discretion,  and  were 
brought  up  to  London  under  a  strong  guard.  Their  lives  were 
forfeit ;  for  they  had  been  guilty,  not  merely  of  mutiny,  which 
was  then  not  a  legal  crime,  but  of  levying  war  against  the  King. 
William,  however,  with  politic  clemency,  abstained  from  shed- 
ding the  blood  even  of  the  most  culpable.  A  few  of  the  ring- 
leaders were  brought  to  trial  at  the  next  Bury  assizes,  and  were 
convicted  of  high  treason  ;  but  their  lives  were  spared.  The 
rest  were  merely  ordered  to  return  to  their  duty.  The  regi- 
ment, lately  so  refractory,  went  submissively  to  the  Continent, 
and  there,  through  many  hard  campaigns,  distinguished  itself 
by  fidelity,  by  discipline,  and  by  valour.* 

This  event  facilitated  an  important  change  in  our  polity,  a 
change  which,  it  is  true,  could  not  have  been  long  delayed,  but 
which  would  not  have  been  easily  accomplished  except  at  a  mo- 
ment of  extreme  danger.  The  time  had  at  length  arrived  at 
which  it  was  necessary  to  make  a  legal  distinction  between 
the  soldier  and  the  citizen.  Under  the  Plantagenets  and 
the  Tudors  there  had  been  no  standing  army.  The  standing 
army  which  had  existed  under  the  last  kings  of  the  House 
of  Stuart  had  been  regarded  by  every  party  in  the  state  with 
str%ig  and  not  unreasonable  aversion.  The  common  law  gave 
the  Sovereign  no  power  to  control  his  troops.  The  Parlia- 
ment, regarding  them  as  mere  tools  of  tyranny,  had  not  been  dis- 
posed to  give  such  power  by  statute.  James  indeed  had  induced 
his  corrupt  and  servile  Judges  to  put  on  some  obsolete  laws  a 
construction  which  enabled  them  to  punish  desertion  capitally. 
But  this  construction  was  considered  by  all  respectable  jurists  as 
unsound,  and,  had  it  been  sound,  would  have  been  far  from  ef- 
fecting all  that  was  necessary  for  the  purpose  of  maintaining 

«  London  Gazette,  March  25, 1689  :  Van  Citters  to  the  States  General.  March.^r 

April  1, 

Letters  of  Nottingham  in  the  State  Paper  Office,  dated  July  23,  and  August  9, 
1689 ;  Historical  Record  of  the  first  Regiment  of  Friot,  printed  by  authority.  See 
also  a  curious  disrrpssion  in  the  Oompleat  History  of  the  life  and  Military  Actions 
of  Kichard,  Earl  of  Tyrcoimel,  lo§p. 

VOL.  HI.— 4 


50  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

military  discipline.  Even  James  did  not  venture  to  inflict  death 
by  sentence  of  a  court  martial.  The  deserter  was  treated  as  an 
ordinary  felon,  was  tried  at  the  assizes  by  a  petty  jury  on  a  bill 
found  by  a  grand  jury,  and  was  at  liberty  to  avail  himself  of  any 
technical  flaw  which  might  be  discovered  in  the  indictment. 

The  Revolution,  by  altering  the  relative  position  of  the  Sov- 
ereign and  the  Parliament,  had  altered  also  the  relative  position 
of  the  army  and  the  nation.  The  King  and  the  Commons  were 
now  at  unity  ;  and  both  were  alike  menaced  by  the  greatest  mil- 
itary power  which  had  existed  in  Europe  since  the  downfall  of 
the  Roman  empire.  In  a  few  weeks  thirty  thousand  veterans, 
accustomed  to  conquer,  and  led  by  able  and  experienced  captains, 
might  cross  from  the  ports  of  Normandy  and  Britanny  to  our 
shores.  That  such  a  force  would  with  little  difficulty  scatter 
three  times  that  number  of  militia,  no  man  well  acquainted  with 
war  could  doubt.  There  must  then  be  regular  soldiers  ;  and,  if 
there  were  to  be  regular  soldiers,  it  must  be  indispensable,  both 
to  their  efficiency,  and  to  the  security  of  every  other  class,  that 
they  should  be  kept  under  a  strict  discipline.  An  ill  disciplined 
army  has  ever  been  a  more  costly  and  a  more  licentious  militia, 
impotent  against  a  foreign  enemy,  and  formidable  only  to  the 
country  which  it  is  paid  to  defend.  A  strong  line  of  demarca- 
tion must  therefore  be  drawn  between  the  soldiers  and  the  rest 
of  the  community.  For  the  sake  of  public  freedom,  they  mu^t, 
in  the  midst  of  freedom,  be  placed  under  a  despotic  rule.  They 
must  be  subject  to  a  sharper  penal  code,  and  to  a  more  stringent 
code  of  procedure,  than  are  administered  by  the  ordinary  tribu- 
nals. Some  acts  which  in  the  citizen  are  innocent  must  in  the 
soldier  be  crimes.  Some  acts  which  in  the  citizen  are  punished 
with  fine  or  imprisonment  must  in  the  soldier  be  punished  with 
death.  The  machinery  by  which  courts  of  law  ascertain  the 
guilt  or  innocence  of  an  accused  citizen  is  too  slow  and  too  intri- 
cate to  be  applied  to  an  accused  soldier.  For,  of  all  the  mala- 
dies incident  to  the  body  politic,  military  insubordination  is  that 
which  requires  the  most  prompt  and  drastic  remedies.  If  the 
evil  be  not  stopped  as  soon  as  it  appears,  it  is  certain  to  spread ; 
and  it  cannot  spread  far  without  danger  to  the  very  vitals  of  the 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  5J 

commonwealth.  For  the  general  safety,  therefore,  a  summary 
jurisdiction  of  terrible  extent  must,  in  camps,  be  entrusted  to 
rude  tribunals  composed  of  men  of  the  sword. 

But,  though  it  was  certain  that  the  country  could  not,  at 
that  moment,  be  secure  without  professional  soldiers,  and 
equally  certain  that  professional  soldiers  must  be  worse  than 
useless  unless  they  were  placed  under  a  rule  more  arbitrary 
and  severe  than  that  to  which  other  men  were  subject,  it  was 
not  without  great  misgivings  that  a  House  of  Commons  could 
venture  to  recognise  the  existence  and  to  make  provision  for 
the  government  of  a  standing  army.  There  was  scarcely  a 
public  man  of  note  who  had  not  often  avowed  his  conviction 
that  our  polity  and  a  standing  army  could  not  exist  together. 
The  Whigs  had  been  in  the  constant  habit  of  repeating  that 
standing  armies  had  destroyed  the  free  institutions  of  the  neigh- 
bouring nations.  The  Tories  had  repeated  as  constantly  that, 
in  our  own  island,  a  standing  army  had  subverted  the  Church, 
oppressed  the  gentry,  and  murdered  the  King.  No  leader  of 
either  party  could,  without  laying  himself  open  to  the  charge  o^f 
gross  inconsistency,  propose  that  such  an  army  should  hence- 
forth be  one  of  the  permanent  establishments  of  the  realm. 
The  mutiny  at  Ipswich,  and  the  panic  which  that  mutiny  pro- 
duced, made  the  first  step  in  t4ie  right  direction  easy ;  and  by 
that  step  the  whole  course  of  our  subsequent  legislation  was 
determined.  A  short  bill  was  brought  in  which  began  by  de- 
claring, in  explicit  terms,  that  standing  armies  and  courts  mar- 
tial were  unknown  to  the  law  of  England.  It  was  then  en- 
acted that,  on  account  of  the  extreme  perils  impending  at  that 
moment  over  the  state,  no  man  mustered  on  pay  in  the  service 
of  the  Crown  should,  on  pain  of  death,  or  of  such  lighter  pun- 
ishment as  a  court  martial  should  deem  sufficient,  deser.t  his 
colours  or  mutiny  against  his  commanding  officers.  This  statute 
was  to  be  in  force  only  six  months  ;  and  many  of  those  who 
voted  for  it  probably  believed  that  it  would,  at  the  close  of  that 
period,  be  suffered  to  expire.  The  bill  passed  rapidly  and 
easily.  Not  a  single  division  was^aken  upon  it  in  the  House 
of  Commons.  A  mitigating  clause  indeed,  which  illustrates 


52  HISTORY   OP   ENGLAND. 

somewhat  curiously  the  manners  of  that  age,  was  added  by  way 
of  rider  after  the  third  reading.  This  clause  provided  that  no 
court  martial  should  pass  sentence  of  death  except  between  the 
hours  of  six  in  the  morning  and  one  in  the  afternoon.  The 
dinner  hour  was  then  early  ;  and  it  was  but  too  probable  that 
a  gentleman  who  had  dined  would  be  in  a  state  in  which  he 
could  not  safely  be  trusted  with  the  lives  of  his  fellow  creatures. 
With  this  amendment,  the  first  and  most  concise  of  our  many 
Mutiny  Bills  was  sent  up  to  the  Lords,  and  was,  in  a  few 
hours,  hurried  by  them  through  all  its  stages  and  passed  by  the 
King.* 

Thus  began,  without  one  dissentient  voice  in  Parliament, 
without  one  murmur  in  the  nation,  a  change  which  had  become 
necessary  to  the  safety  of  the  state,  yet  which  every  party  in 
the  state  then  regarded  with  extreme  dread  and  aversion.  Six 
months  passed ;  and  still  the  public  danger  continued.  The 
power  necessary  to  the  maintenance  of  military  discipline  was  a 
second  time  entrusted  to  the  Crown  for  a  short  term.  The 
trust  again  expired,  and  was  again  renewed.  By  slow  degrees 
familiarity  reconciled  the  public  mind  to  the  names,  once  so 
odious,  of  standing  army  and  court  martial.  It  was  proved  by 
experience  that,  in  a  well  constituted  society,  professional  sol- 
diers may  be  terrible  to  a  foreign  enemy,  and  yet  submissive  to 
the  civil  power.  What  had  been  at  first  tolerated  as  the  excep- 
tion began  to  be  considered  as  the  rule.  Not  a  session  passed 
without  a  Mutiny  Bill.  During  two  generations,  indeed,  an 
annual  clamour  against  the  new  system  was  raised  by  some 
factious  men  desirous  to  weaken  the  hands  of  the  Government, 
and  by  some  respectable  men  who  felt  an  honest  but  injudicious 
reverence  for  every  old  constitutional  tradition,  and  who  were 
unable  to  understand  that  what  at  one  stage  in  the  progress  of 
society  is  pernicious  may  at  another  stage  be  indispensable. 
But  this  clamour,  as  years  rolled  on,  became  fainter  and  fainter. 
The  debate  which  recurred  every  spring  on  the  Mutiny  Bill 
came  to  be  regarded  merely  as  an  occasion  on  which  hopeful 
young  orators,  fresh  from  Christchurch,  were  to  deliver  maiden 
*  Sta*,.  1  W.  &  M.  sess.  1  c.  5  ;  Commons'  Journals,  March  28, 1689. 


WILLIAM   AND   MART.  53 

speeches,  getting  forth  how  the  guards  of  Pisistratus  seized  the 
cuadel  of  Athens,  aud  how  the  Praetorian  cohorts  sold  the 
Roman  empire  to  Didius.  At  length  these  declamations  became 
too  ridiculous  to  be  repeated.  The  most  oldfashioiied,  the  most 
eccentric,  politician  could  hardly,  in  the  reign  of  George  the 
Third,  contend  that  there  ought  to  be  no  regular  soldiers,  or 
that  the  ordinary  law,  administered  by  the  ordinary  courts, 
would  effectually  maintain  discipline  among  such  soldiers.  All 
parties  being  agreed  as  to  the  general  principle,  a  long  succes- 
sion of  Mutiny  Bills  passed  without  any  discussion,  except  when 
some  particular  article  of  the  military  code  appeared  to  require 
amendment.  It  is  perhaps  because  the  army  became  thus 
gradually,  and  almost  imperceptibly,  one  of  the  institutions  of 
England,  that  it  has  acted  in  such  perfect  harmony  with  all  her 
other  institutions,  has  never  once,  during  a  hundred  and  sixty 
years,  been  untrue  to  the  throne  or  disobedient  to  the  law,  has 
never  once  defied  the  tribunals  or  overawed  the  constituent 
bodies.  To  this  day,  however,  the  Estates  of  the  Realm  con- 
tinue to  set  up  periodically,  with  laudable  jealousy,  a  landmark 
on  the  frontier  which  was  traced  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution. 
They  solemnly  reassert  every  year  the  doctrine  laid  down  in 
the  Declaration  of  Right ;  and  they  then  grant  to  the  Sovereign 
an  extraordinary  power  to  govern  a  certain  number  of  soldiers 
according  to  certain  rules  during  twelve  months  more. 

In  the  same  week  in  which  the  first  Mutiny  Bill  was  laid  on 
the  table  of  the  Commons,  another  temporary  law,  made  neces- 
sary by  the  unsettled  state  of  the  kingdom,  was  passed.  Since 
the  flight  of  James  many  persons  who  were  'believed  to  have 
been  deeply  implicated  in  his  unlawful  acts,  or  to  be  engaged 
in  plots  for  his  restoration,  had  been  arrested  and  confined. 
During  the  vacancy  of  the  throne,  these  men  could  derive  no 
benefit  from  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act.  For  the  machinery  by 
which  alone  that  Act  txmld  be  carried  into  execution  had  ceased 
to  exist ;  and,  through  the  whole  of  Hilary  term,  all  the  courts 
in  "Westminster  Hall  had  remained  closed.  Now  that  the  ordi- 
nary tribunals  were  about  to  resume  their  functions,  it  was  ap- 
prehended that  those  prisoners  whom  it  was  not  convenient  to 


54  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

bring  instantly  to  trial  would  demand  and  obtain  their  liberty. 
A  bill  was  therefore  brought  in  which  empowered  the  King  to 
detain  in  custody  during  a  few  weeks  such  persons  as  he  should 
suspect  of  evil  designs  against  his  government.  This  bill  passed 
the  two  Houses  with  little  or  no  opposition.*  But  the  male- 
contents  out  of  doors  did  not  fail  to  remark  that,  in  the  late 
reign,  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act  had  not  been  one  day  suspended. 
It  was  the  fashion  to  call  James  a  tyrant,  and  William  a  de- 
liverer. Yet,  before  the  deliverer  had  been  a  month  on  the 
throne,  he  had  deprived  Englishmen  of  a  precious  right  which 
the  tyrant  had  respected,  f  This  is  a  kind  of  reproach  which  a 
government  sprung  from  a  popular  revolution  almost  inevitably 
incurs.  From  such  a  government  men  naturally  think  them- 
selves entitled  to  demand  a  more  gentle  and  liberal  administra- 
tion than  is  expected  from  old  and  deeply  rooted  power.  Yet 
such  a  government,  having,  as  it  always  has,  many  active  ene- 
mies, and  not  having  the  strength  derived  from  legitimacy  and 
prescription,  can  at  first  maintain  itself  only  by  a  vigilance  and 
a  severity  of  which  old  and  deeply  rooted  power  stands  in  no 
need.  Extraordinary  and  irregular  vindications  of  public  liberty 
are  sometimes  necessary :  yet,  however  necessary,  they  are 
almost  always  followed  by  some  temporary  abridgments  of  that 
very  liberty  ;  and  every  such  abridgment  is  a  fertile  and  plaus- 
ible theme  for  sarcasm  and  invective. 

Unhappily  sarcasm  and  invective  directed  against  William 
were  but  too  likely  to  find  favourable  audience.  Each  of  the 
two  great  parties  had  its  own  reasons  for  being  dissatisfied  with 
him  ;  and  there  were  some  complaints  in  which  both  parties 
joined.  His  manners  gave  almost  universal  offence.  He  was  in 
truth  far  better  qualified  to  save  a  nation  than  to  adorn  a  court. 
In  the  highest  parts  of  statesmanship,  he  had  no  equal  among 
his  contemporaries.  He  had  formed  plans  not  inferior  in  gran- 
deur and  boldness  to  those  of  Richelieu,  and  had  carried  them 
into  effect  with  a  tact  and  wariness  worthy  of  Mazarin.  Two 
countries,  the  seats  of  civil  liberty  and  of  the  Reformed  Faith, 
had  been  preserved  by  his  wisdom  and  courage  from  extreme 

*  Stat.  1  W.  &  M.  sess.  1.  c.  2.  t  Ronquillo.  TIarch  £-18,-  S3J. 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  55 

perils.  Plolland  he  had  delivered  from  foreign,  and  England 
from  domestic  foes.  Obstacles  apparently  insurmountable  had 
been  interposed  between  him  and  the  ends  on  which  he  was  in- 
tent ;  and  those  obstacles  his  genius  had  turned  into  stepping 
stones.  Under  his  dexterous  management  the  hereditary  ene- 
mies of  his  house  had  helped  him  to  mount  a  throne ;  and  the 
persecutors  of  his  religion  had  helped  him  to  rescue  his  religion 
from  persecution.  Fleets  and  armies,  collected  to  withstand 
him.  had,  without  a  struggle,  submitted  to  his  orders.  Factions 
and  sects,  divided  by  mortal  antipathies,  had  recognised  him  as 
their  common  head.  Without  carnage,  without  devastation,  he 
had  won  a  victory  compared  with  which  all  the  victories  of 
Gustavus  and  Turenne  were  insignificant.  In  a  few  weeks  he 
had  changed  the  relative  position  of  all  the  states  in  Europe, 
and  had  restored  the  equilibrium  which  the  preponderance  of 
one  power  had  destroyed.  'Foreign  nations  did  ample  justice  to 
his  great  qualities.  In  every  Continental  country  where  Pro- 
testant congregations  met,  fervent  thanks  were  offered  to  God, 
who,  from  among  the  progeny  of  His  servants,  Maurice,  the 
deliverer  of  Germany,  and  William,  the  deliverer  of  Holland, 
had  raised  up  a  third  deliverer,  the  wisest  and  mightiest  of  all. 
At  Vienna,  at  Madrid,  nay,  at  Rome,  the  valiant  and  sagacious 
heretic  was  held  in  honour  as  the  chief  of  the  great  confederacy 
against  the  House  of  Bourbon  ;  and  even  at  Versailles  the 
hatred  which  he  inspired  was  largely  mingled  with  admiration. 
Here  he  was  less  favourably  judged.  In  truth,  our  ances- 
tors saw  him  in  the  worst  of  all  lights.  By  the  French,  the 
Germans,  and  tho  Italians,  he  was  contemplated  at  such  a  dis- 
tance that  only  what  was  great  could  be  discerned,  and  that 
small  blemishes  were  invisible.  To  the  Dutch  he  was  brought 
close :  but  he  was  himself  a  Dutchman.  In  his  intercourse  with 
them  he  was  seen  to  the  best  advantage  :  he  was  perfectly  at 
his  ease  with  them;  and  from  among  them  he  had  chosen  his 
earliest  and  dearest  friends.  But  to  the  English  he  appeared  in 
a  most  unfortunate  point  of  view.  He  was  at  once  too  "near  to 
them  and  too  far  from  them.  He  lived  among  them,  so  that  the 
smallest  peculiarity  of  temper  or  manner  could  not  escape  their 


56  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

notice.   Yet  he  lived  apart  from  them,  and  was  to  the  last  a  for- 
eigner in  speech,  tastes,  and  habits. 

One  of  the  chief  functions  of  our  Sovereigns  had  long  been 
to  preside  over  the  society  of  the  capital.  That  function  Charles 
the  Second  had  performed  with  immense  success.  His  easy 
bow,  his  good  stories,  his  style  of  dancing  and  playing  tennis, 
the  sound  of  his  cordial  laugh,  were  familiar  to  all  London. 
One  day  he  was  seen  among  the  elms  of  Saint  James's  Park 
chatting  with  Dryden  about  poetry.*  Another  day  his  arm  was 
on  Tom  Durfey's  shoulder  ;  and  His  Majesty  was  taking  a  sec- 
ond, while  his  companion  sang  "  Philida,  Philida,"  or  "  To 
horse,  brave  boys,  to  Newmarket,  to  horse."  James,  with  much 
less  vivacity  and  good  nature,  was  accessible,  and,  to  people  who 
did  not  cross  him,  civil.  But  of  this  sociableness  William  was 
entirely  destii  tte.  He  seldom  came  forth  from  his  closet ;  and 
when  he  appeared  in  the  public  rooms,  he  stood  among  the 
crowd  of  courtiers  and  ladies,  stern  and  abstracted,  making  no 
jest  and  smiling  at  none.  His  freezing  look,  his  silence,  the 
dry  and  concise  answers  which  he  uttered  when  he  could  keep 
silence  no  longer,  disgusted  noblemen  and  gentlemen  who  had 
been  accustomed  to  be  slapped  on  the  back  by  their  royal  mas- 
ters, called  Jack  or  •  Harry,  congratulated  about  race  cups  or 
rallied  about  actr-sses.  The  women  missed  the  homage  due  to 
their  sex.  They  observed  that  the  King  spoke  in  a  somewhat 
imperious  tone  even  to  the  wife  to  whom  he  owed  so  much,  and 
whom  he  sincerely  loved  and  esteemed. t  They  were  amused 
and  shocked  to  see  him,  when  the  Princess  Anne  dined  with 

*  See  the  account  given  in  Spence's  Anecdotes  of  the  Origin  of  Dryden's 
Medal. 

t  Guardian,  No.  67. 

t  There  is  abundant  proof  that  "William,  though  a  very  affectionate,  was  not 
always  a  polite  husband.  But  no  credit  is  due  to  the  story  contained  in  the  let- 
ter which  Dalrymple  was  foolish  enough  to  publish  as  Nottingham's  in  1773,  and 
wise  enough  to  omit  in  the  edition  of  1790.  How  any  person  who  knew  anything 
of  the  history  of  those  times  could  be  so  strangely  deceived,  it  is  not  easy  to 
understand,  particularly  as  the  handwriting  bears  no  resemblance  to  Notting- 
ham's, with  which  Dalrymple  was  familiar.  The  letter  is  evidently  a  common 
newsletter,  written  by  a  scribbler,  who  had  nover  seen  the  King  and  Queen 
except  at  so-ne  public  plaoe.  and  who^e  anecdotes  of  their  private  life  rested  on 
no  better  authority  than  coffee-house  gossip. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  57 

him,  and  when  the  first  green  peas  of  the  year  were  put  on  the 
table,  devour  the  whole  dish  without  offering  a  spoonful  to  Her 
Royal  Highness  :  and  they  pronounced  that  this  great  soldier 
and  politician  was  no  better  than  a  Low  Dutch  bear.* 

One  misfortune,  which  was  imputed  to  him  as  a  crime,  was 
his  bad  English.  He  spoke  our  language,  but  not  well.  His 
accent  was  foreign :  his  diction  was  inelegant ;  and  his  vocabu- 
lary seems  to  have  been  no  larger  than  was  necessary  for  the 
transaction  of  business.  To  the  difficulty  which  he  felt  in  ex- 
pressing himself,  and  to  his  consciousness  that  his  pronunciation 
was  bad,  must  be  partly  ascribed  the  taciturnity  and  the  short 
answers  which  gave  so  much  offence.  Our  literature  he  was  in- 
capable of  enjoying  or  of  understanding.  He  never  once,  during 
his  whole  reign,  showed  himself  at  the  theatre,  f  The  poets 
who  wrote  Pindaric  verses  in  his  praise,  complained  that  their 
flights  of  sublimity  were  beyond  his  comprehension.!  Those 
who  are  acquainted  with  the  panegyrical  odes  of  that  age  will 
perhaps  be  of  opinion  that  he  did  not  lose  much  by  his  igno- 
rance. 

It  is  true  that  his  wife  did  her  best  to  supply  what  was 
wanting,  and  that  she  was  excellently  well  qualified  to.  be  the 
head  of  the  Court.  She  was  English  by  birth,  and  English 
also  in  her  tastes  and  feelings.  Her  face  was  handsome,  her 
port  majestic,  her  temper  sweet  and  lively,  her  manners 
affable  and  graceful.  Her  understanding,  though  very  im- 
perfectly cultivated,  was  quick.  There  was  no  want  of 
feminine  wit  and  shrewdness  in  her  conversation ;  and  her 
letters  were  so  well  expressed  that  they  deserved  to  be  well 
spelt.  She  took  much  pleasure  in  the  lighter  kinds  of  literature, 
and  did  something  towards  bringing  books  into  fashion  among 

*  TJonqulllo  ;  Burnet,  ii.  2  ;  Duchess  of  Marlborough's  Vindication.  In  a  pas- 
te al  dialogue  between  Philander  and  Palaemon,  published  in  1601,  the  «i  like 
with  which  women  of  fashion  regarded  'William  is  mentioned.  Philander  Bays, 

"  Bnt  m«n  methinks  his  reason  should  recall, 

Nor  let  frail  woman  work  his  second  falV 
t  Tnchin's  Observator  of  November  16,  170G. 

t  Prior,  who  was  treated  by  William  with  much  kindness,  and  who  was  very 
prateful  for  it.  informs  us  that  the  King  did  not  understand  poetical  eulogy. 
The  passage  is  in  a  highly  curious  manuscript,  the  property  of  Lord  Lansdowne. 


58  HISTOKY    OF    ENGLAND. 

ladies  of  quality.  The  stainless  purity  of  her  private  life  and 
the  strict  attention  which  she  paid  to  her  religious  duties  were 
the  more  respectable,  because  she  was  singularly  tree  from  cen- 
soriousness,  and  discouraged  scandal  as  much  as  vice.  In  dis- 
like of  backbiting  indeed  she  and  her  husband  cordially  agreed : 
but  they  showed  that  dislike  in  different  and  in  very  character- 
istic ways.  William  preserved  profound  silence,  and  gave  the 
talebearer  a  look  which,  as  was  said  by  a  person  who  had  once 
encountered  it,  and  who  took  good  care  never  to  encounter  it 
again,  made  your  story  go  back  down  your  throat.*  Mary  had 
a  way  of  interrupting  tattle  about  elopements,  duels,  and  play- 
debts,  by  asking  the  tattlers,  very  quietly  yet  significantly, 
whether  they  had  ever  read  her  favourite  sermon,  Doctor  Til- 
lotson's  on  Evil  Speaking.  Her  charities  were  munificent 
and  judicious  ;  and,  though  she  made  no  ostentatious  display 
of  them,  it  was  known  that  she  retrenched  from  her  own 
state  in  order  to  relieve  Protestants  whom  persecution  had 
driven  from  France  and  Ireland,  arid  who  were  starving  in  the 
garrets  of  London.  So  amiable  was  her  coaduit,  that  she  was 
generally  spoken  of  with  esteem  and  tenderness  by  the  most 
respectable  of  those  who  disproved  of  the  manner  in  which  she 
had  been  raised  to  the  throne,  and  even  of  those  who  refused  to 
acknowledge  her  as  Queen.  In  the  Jacobite  lampoons  of  that 
time,  lampoons  which,  in  virulence  and  malignity,  far  exceed 
anything  that  our  age  has  produced,  she  was  not  often  men- 
tioned with  severity.  Indeed  she  sometimes  expressed  her  sur- 
prise at  finding  that  libellers  who  respected  nothing  else 

*  Memoires  Orijinaux  sur  le  Regne  et  la  Cour  de  Frederic  I.,  Roi  de  Prusse, 
Merits  par  Christophe  Comte  de  Dolina.  Berlin,  1833.  It  is  strange  that  this  in- 
teresting volume  should  be  almost  unknown  in  England.  The  only  copy  that  I 
have  ever  seen  of  it  was  kindly  given  to  me  by  Sir  Robert  Adair.  "  Le  Roi," 
Dohna  says,  "  avoit  une  autre  qualite  tres  estimable,  qui  est  celle  de  n'aimer 
point  qu'on  remit t  de  mauvais  offices  a  personne  par  des  railleries."  The  Marquis 
de  la  Fore"t  tried  to  entertain  His  Majesty  at  the  expense  of  an  English  nobleman. 
"  Ce  prince,"  says  Dohna,  "  prit  son  air  severe,  et.  le  regardant  sans  mot  dire, 
lui  fit  rentrer  les  paroles  dans  le  ventre.  Le  Marquis  m'en  fit  ses  plaintes  quel- 
ques  heures  ay>res.  '  J'ai  mal  pris  ma  bisque,'  dit-il ;  'j'ai  cru  faire  1'agreable  sur 
le  chapitre  de  Milord.  .  .  mais  j'ai  trouv6  ;i  qui  parler,  et  j'ai  attrape  un  regard 
du  roi  qui  m'a  fait  passer  1'envie  de  rire.' "  Dohna  supposed  that  William  might 
be  less  sensitive  about  the  character  of  a  Frenchman,  and  tried  the  experiment. 
But,  says  he,  "  j'eus  a  peu  pres  le  mSme  sort  que  M.  de  la  Foret." 


"WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  59 

respected  her  name.  God,  she  said,  knew  where  her  weakness 
lay.  Siie  was  too  sensitive  to  abuse  and  calumny :  He  had 
mercifully  spared  her  a  trial  which  was  beyond  her  strength; 
and  the  best  return  which  she  could  make  to  Him  was  to  dis- 
countenance all  malicious  reflections  on  the  characters  of  others. 
Assured  that  she  possessed  her  husband's  entire  confidence  and 
affection,  she  turned  the  edge  of  his  sharp  speeches  sometimes 
by  soft  and  sometimes  by  playful  answers,  and  employed  all 
the  influence  which  she  derived  from  her  many  pleasing  quali- 
ties to  gain  the  hearts  of  the  people  for  him.* 

If  she  had  long  continued  to  assemble  round  her  the  best 
society  of  London,  it  is  probable  that  her  kindness  and  courtesy 
would  have  done  much  to  efface  the  unfavorable  impression 
made  by  his  stern  and  frigid  demeanour.  Unhappily  his  physi- 
cal infirmities  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  reside  at  Whitehall. 
The  air  of  Westminster,  mingled  with  the  fog  of  the  river 
which  in  spring  tides  overflowed  the.  courts  of  his  palacs,  with 
the  smoke  of  seacoal  from  two  hundred  thousand  chimneys,  and 
with  the  fumes  of  all  the  filth  which  was  then  suffered  to  accu- 
mulate in  the  streets,  was  insupportable  to  him  ;  for  his  lungs 
were  weak,  and  his  sense  of  smell  exquisitely  keen.  His  con- 
stitutional asthma  made  rapid  progress.  His  physicians  pro- 
nounced it  impossible  r!«at  he  could  live  to  the  end  of  the  year. 
His  face  was  so  ghastly  that  he  could  hardly  be  recognized. 

*  Compare  the  account  of  Mary  by  the  "Whig  Burnet  with  the  mention  of  her 
by  the  Tory  Evelyn  in  his  Diary,  March  8,  16W-5,  and  with  what  is  said  of  her  by 
the  Nonjuror  who  wrote  the  Letter  to  Archbishop  Teuison  on  her  death  in  1695. 
The  impression  which  the  bhmtness  and  reserve  of  William  and  the  grace  and 
gentleness  of  Mary  had  made  on  the  populace  mav  be  traced  in  the  rPTnains  of 
the  street  poetry  of  that  time.  The  following  conjugal  dialogue  may  still  be  seen 
on  the  original  broadside. 

"Then  bespoke  Mary,  our  most  royal  Pn<>en. 
'  My  gracious  King  William  where  arc  rcvi  piin;  ?' 
He  answered  her  quickly,  '  I  coun  t  him  no  man 
That  telleth  his  secret  unto  a  woman.* 
The  Queen  with  a  modest  behaviour  replied, 
•I  wish  that  kind  Providence  may  be  thy  ffuide, 
To  keep  thee  from  danger,  my  sovereign  Lord, 
The  which  will  the  greatest  of  comfort  afford.'  " 

These  lines  are  in  an  excellent  collection  formed  by  Mr.  Richard  Heber.  and 
now  the  property  of  Mr.  Broderip,  by  whom  it  was  kindly  lent  to  m?.    In  one  ol 
the  mo*t  savage  Jacobite  basquinades  of  16S!>,  William  is  described  as 
"  A  churl  to  his  wife  which  she  makes  but  a  jest." 


60  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Those  who  had  to  transact  business  with  him  were  shocked  to 
hear  him  gasping  for  breath,  and  coughing  till  the  tears  ran 
down  his  cheeks.*  His  mind,  strong  as  it  was,  sympathised 
with  his  bodj%  His  judgment  was  indeed  as  clear  as  ever.  But 
there  was,  during  some  months,  a  perceptible  relaxation  of  that 
energy  by  which  he  had  been  distinguished.  Even  his  Dutch 
friends  whispered  that  he  was  not  the  man  that  he  had  been  at 
the  Hague.f  It  was  absolutely  necessary  that  he  should  quit 
London.  He  accordingly  took  up  his  residence  in  the  purer 
air  of  Hampton  Court.  That  mansion,  begun  by  the  mag- 
nificent Wolsey,  was  a  fine  specimen  of  the  architecture  which 
flourished  in  England  under  the  first  Tudors :  but  the  apart- 
ments were  not,  according  to  the  notions  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  well  fitted  for  purposes  of  state.  Our  princes  there- 
fore had,  since  the  Restoration,  repaired  thither  seldom,  and 
only  when  they  wished  to  live  for  a  time  in  retirement.  As 
William  proposed  to  make  the  deserted  edifice  his  chief  palace, 
it  was  necessary  for  him  to  build  and  to  plant ;  nor  was  the 
necessity  disagreeable  to  him.  -For  he  had,  like  most  of  his 
countrymen,  a  pleasure  in  decorating  a  country  house  ;  and  next 
to  hunting,  though  at  a  great  interval,  his  favourite  amusements 
were  architecture  and  gardening.  He  had  already  created  on  a 
sandy  heath  in  Guelders  a  paradise,  which  attracted  multitudes 
of  the  curious  from  Holland  and  Westphalia.  Mary  had  laid 
the  first  stone  of  the  house.  Bentinck  had  superintended  the 
digging  of  the  fishponds.  There  were  cascades  and  grottoes,  a 
spacious  orangery,  and  an  aviary  which  furnished  Hondekoeter 
with  numerous  specimens  of  manycoloured  plumage.J  The 
King,  in  his  splendid  banishment,  pined  for  this  favourite  seat, 

*  Burnet,  ii.  2;  Burnet,  MS.  Harl,  6584.  But  Ronquillo's  account  is  much 
more  circumstantial.  "  Nada  se  ha  visto  mas  desfigurado  ;  y,  quaiitas  veces  he 
estado  con  el,  le  he  visto  toser  tanto  que  se  le  saltaban  las  lagrimas,  y  se  ponia 
moxado  y  arrancando  ;  y  confiesan  los  medicos  que  es  una  asma  incurable." 
Mar.  8-18,  1689.  Avaux  wrote  to  the  same  effect  from  Ireland.  "La  saute  de 
1'usurpateur  est  fort  mauvaise.  L'on  ne  croit  pas  qu'il  vive  uai  an."  April  8-18. 

t  Hasta  decir  los  mismos  Hollandeses  que  lo  desconozcan,"  says  RonquiUo. 
"  II  est  absolument  mal  propre  pour  le  r&le  qu'il  a  a  jouer  a  1'heure  qu'il  est," 
tays  Avaux.  "  Slothful  and  sickly,"  says  Evelyn,  March  29, 1689. 

t  See  Harris's  description  of  Loo,  109&. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  61 

and  found  some  consolation  in  creating  another  Loo  on  the 
banks  of  the  Thames.  Soon  a  wide  extent  of  ground  was  laid 
out  in  formal  walks  and  parterres.  Much  idle  ingenuity  was 
employed  in  forming  that  intricate  labyrinth  of  verdure  which 
has  puzzled  and  amused  five  generations  of  holiday  visitors 
from  London.  Limes  thirty  years  old  were  transplanted  from 
neighbouring  woods  to  shade  the  alleys.  Artificial  fountains 
spouted  among  the  flower  beds.  A  new  court,  not  designed 
with  the  purest  taste,  but  stately,  spacious,  and  commodious, 
rose  under  the  direction  of  Wren.  The  wainscots  were  adorned 
with  the  rich  and  delicate  carvings  of  Gibbons.  The  staircases 
were  in  a  blaze  with  the  glaring  frescoes  of  Verrio.  In  every 
corner  of  the  mansion  appeared  a  profusion  of  gewgaws,  not 
yet  familiar  to  English  eyes.  Mary  had  acquired  at  the  Hague 
a  taste  for  the  porcelain  of  China,  and  amused  herself  by  form- 
ing at  Hampton  a  vast  collection  of  hideous  images,  and  of 
vases  on  which  houses,  trees,  bridges,  and  mandarins,  were 
depicted  in  outrageous  defiance  of  all  the  laws  of  perspective. 
The  fashion,  a  frivolous  and  inelegant  fashion  it  must  be  owned, 
which  was  thus  set  by  the  amiable  Queen,  spread  fast  and  wide. 
lu  a  few  years  almost  every  great  house  in  the  kingdom  con- 
tained a  museum  of  these  grotesque  baubles.  Even  statesmen 
and  generals  were  not  ashamed  to  be  renowned  as  judges  of 
teapots  and  dragons  ;  and  satirists  long  continued  to  repeat  that 
a  fine  lady  valued  her  mottled  green  pottery  quite  as  much  as 
she  valued  her  monkey,  and  much  more  than  she  valued  her 
husband.* 

But  the  new  palace  was  embellished  with  works  of  art  of  a 
very  dLlerent  kind.  A  gallery  was  erected  for  the  cartoons  of 
Raphael.  Those  great  pictures,  then  and  still  the  finest  on  our 
side  of  the  Alps,  had  been  preserved  by  Cromwell  from  the  fate 
which  befel  most  of  the  other  masterpieces  in  the  collection  of 
Charles  the  First,  but  had  been  suffered  to  lie  during  many 

*  Every  person  who  is  well  acquainted  with  Pope  and  Addison  will  remember 
f.elr  sarcasms  ou  this  taste.  Lady  Mary  "Wortley  Montague  took  the  other  side. 
"  Old  China,"  she  fays,  "  is  below  nobody's  taste,  since  it  has  been  the  Duke  of 
Argylc's,  whose  understanding  has  never  been  doubted  cither  by  his  friends  or 
enemies." 


62  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

years  nailed  up  in  deal  boxes.  Peter,  raising  the  cripple  at  the 
Beautiful  Gate,  and  Paul,  proclaiming  the  Unknown  God  to  the 
philosophers  of  Athens,  were  now  brought  forth  from  obscurity 
to  be  contemplated  by  artists  with  admiration  and  despair.  The 
expense  of  the  works  at  Hampton  was  the  subject  of  bitter  com- 
plaint to  many  Tories,  who  had  very  gently  blamed  the  bound- 
less profusion  with  which  Charles  the  Second  had  built  and  re- 
built, furnished  and  refurnished,  the  dwelling  of  the  Duchess  of 
Portsmouth.*  The  expense,  however,  was  not  the  chief  cause 
of  the  discontent  which  William's  change  of  residence  excited. 
There  was  no  longer  a  Court  at  Westminster.  Whitehall,  once 
the  daily  resort  of  the  noble  and  the  powerful,  the  beautiful  and 
the  gay,  the  place  to  which  fops  came  to  show  their  new  per- 
uques,  men  of  gallantry  to  exchange  glances  with  fine  ladies, 
politicians  to  push  their  fortunes,  loungers  to  hear  the  news, 
country  gentlemen  to  see  the  royal  family,  was  now,  in  the  bus- 
iest season  of  the  year,  when  London  was  full,  when  Parliament 
was  sitting,  left  desolate.  A  solitary  sentinel  paced  the  grass- 
grown  pavement  before  that  door  which  had  once  been  too  nar- 
row for  the  opposite  streams  of  entering  and  departing  courtiers. 
The  services  which  the  metropolis  had  rendered  to  the  King 
were  great  and  recent ;  and  it  was  thought  that  he  might  have 
requited  those  services  better  than  by  treating  it  as  Lewis  had 
treated  Paris.  Halifax  ventured  to  hint  this,  but  was  silenced 
by  a  few  words  which  admitted  of  no  reply.  "  Do  yon  wish," 
said  William  psevishly,  "  to  see  me  dead  ?  "  f 

In  a  short  time  it  was  found  that  Hampton  Court  was  too 

*  As  to  the  works  at  Hampton  Court  see  Evelyn's  Diary.  July  16,  1680  ;  the 
Tour  through  Great  Britain,  1724  ;  the  British  Apelles ;  Horace  Walpole  on 
Modem  Gardening  ;  Burnet,  ii.  2,  3. 

When  Evelyn  was  at  Hampton  Court.  In  IG'??,  the  cartoons  were  not  to  be  seen. 
The  triumphs  of  Andra  Maiitegna  were  then  supposed  to  be  the  liiiest  pictures  ic 
the  palace. 

t  Burnet,  ii.  2  ;  Reresby's  Memoirs.  Ronquillo  wrote  repeatedly  to  the  same 
effect.  For  example.  "  Bien  quisiera  que  el  Key  fuese  mas  comunirable.  y  se 
aoomodase  uu  poco  mas  al  humor  sociable  de  los  Inarlases,  y  quo  estubiera  en 
Londrcs  :  pero  es  cierto  que  sus  achaques  no  se  lo  permiten."  July  8-18.  1080. 
Avaux,  about  the  same  time,  wrote  thus  to  Croissy  fvom  Ireland  :  "  Le  Prince 
d'Oranfp  est  toujours  a  Hampton  Coiirt,  et  jamais  a  la  ville  :  et  le  peuple  est 
fort  mal  satisfait  de  cette  maniere  bizarre  et  retiree." 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  63 

far  from  the  Houses  of  Lords  and  Commons,  and  from  the  pub- 
lic offices,  to  be  the  ordinary  abode  of  the  Sovereign.  Instead, 
however,  of  returning  to  Whitehall,  William  determined  to  have 
another  dwelling,  near  enough  to  his  capital  for  the  transaction 
of  business,  but  not  near  enough  to  be  within  that  atmosphere 
in  which  he  could  not  pass  a  night  without  risk  of  suffocation. 
At  one  time  he  thought  of  Holland  House,  the  villa  of  the  noble 
family  of  Rich ;  and  he  actually  resided  there  some  weeks.* 
But  he  at  length  fixed  his  choice  on  Kensington  House,  the  sub- 
urban residence  of  the  Earl  of  Nottingham.  __  The  purchase  was 
made  for  eighteen  thousand  guineas,  and  was  followed  by  more 
building,  more  planting,  more  expense,  and  more  discontent.f 
At  present  Kensington  House  is  considered  as  a  part  of  London. 
It  was  then  a  rural  mansion,  and  could  not,  in  those  days  of 
highwaymen  and  scourers,  of  roads  deep  in  mire  and  nights  with- 
out lamps,  be  the  rallying  point  of  fashionable  society. 

It  was  well  known  that  the  King,  who  treated  the  English 
nobility  and  gentry  so  ungraciously,  could,  in  a  small  circle  of 
his  own  countrymen,  be  easy,  friendly,  even  jovial,  could  pour 
out  his  feelings  garrulously,  could  fill  his  glass,  perhaps  too  o'- 
ten  ;  and  this  was,  in  the  view  of  our  forefathers,  an  aggrava- 
tion of  his  offences.  Yet  our  forefathers  should  have  had  the 
sense  and  the  justice  to  acknowledge  that  the  patriotism,  which 
they  considered  as  a  virtue  in  themselves,  could  not  be  a  fault 
in  him.  It  was  unjust  to  blame  him  for  not  at  once  transfer- 
ring to  our  island  the  love  which  he  bore  to  the  country  of  his 
birth.  If,  in  essentials,  he  did  his  duty  towards  England,  he 
might  well  be  suffered  to  feel  at  heart  an  affectionate  preference 
for  Holland.  Nor  is  it  a  reproach  to  him  that  he  did  not,  in  the 
reason  of  his  greatness,  discard  companions  who  had  played  with 
him  in  his  childhood,  who  had  stood  by  him  firmly  through  all 
the  vicissitudes  of  his  youth  and  manhood,  who  had,  in  defiance 
of  the  most  loathsome  and  deadly  forms  of  infection,  kept  watch 
by  his  sick  bed,  who  had,  in  the  thickest  of  the  battle,  thrust 
themselves  between  him  and  the  French  swords,  and  whose  at- 

*  Several  of  his  letters  to  Heinsius  are  dated  from  Holland  House, 
t  Luitrell's  Diary  ;  Evelyn's  Diary,  Feb.  25, 1689, 1690. 


64  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

tachment  was,  not  to  the  Stadtholder  or  to  the  King,  but  to 
plain  William  of  Nassau.  It  may  be  added  that  his  old 
friends  could  not  but  rise  in  his  estimation  by  comparison  with 
his  new  courtiers.  To  the  end  of  his  life  all  his  Dutch  com- 
rades, without  exception,  continued  to  deserve  his  confidence. 
They  could  be  out  of  humour  with  him,  it  is  true  ;  and,  when 
out  of  humour,  they  could  be  sullen  and  rude  ;  but  never  did 
they,  even  when  most  angry  and  unreasonable,  fail  to  keep  his 
secrets  and  to  watch  over  his  interests  with  gentleman-like  and 
soldier-like  fidelity. .  Among  his  English  counsellors  such  fidel- 
ity was  rare.*  It  is  painful,  but  it  is  no  more  than  just,  to  ac- 
knowledge that  he  had  but  too  good  reason  for  thinking  meanly 
of  our  national  character.  That  character  was  indeed,  in  essen- 
tials, what  it  has  always  been.  Veracity,  uprightness,  and  man- 
ly boldness  were  then,  as  now,  qualities  eminently  English.  But 
those  qualities,  though  widely  diffused  among  the  great  body  of 
the  people,  were  seldom  to  be  found  in  the  class  with  which 
William  was  best  acquainted.  The  standard  of  honor  and  vir- 
tue among  our  public  men  was,  during'his  reign,  at  the  very 
lowest  point.  His  predecessors  had  bequeathed  to  him  a  court 
foul  with  all  the  vices  of  the  Itestoration,  a  court  swarming  with 
sycophants,  who  were  ready,  on  the  first  turn  of  fortune,  to 
abandon  him  as  they  had  abandoned  his  uncle.  Here  and  there, 
lost  in  that  ignoble  crowd,  was  to  be  found  a  man  of  true  inte£- 

O 

rity  and  public  spirit.  Yet  even  such  a  man  could  not  long  live 
in  such  society  without  much  risk  that  the  strictness  of  his  prin- 
ciples would  be  relaxed,  and  the  delicacy  of  his  sense  of  right 
and  wrong  impaired.  It  was  surely  unjust  to  blame  a  prince 
surrounded  by  flatterers  and  traitors  for  wishing  to  keep  near 

*  De  Foe  makes  this  excuse  for  William  : 

We  blame  the  King  that  he  relies  too  much 

On  strangers.  Germans.  Huguenots,  and  Dutch, 

And  seldom  docs  his  great  affairs  of  state 

To  English  counsellors  communicate. 

The  fact  might  very  well  be  answered  thus  • 

He  has  too  often  been  betrayed  by  us. 

He  must  have  been  a  mad  man  to  rely 

On  English  gentlemen's  fidelity. 

The  Foreigners  have  faithfully  obeyed  him, 

And  none  but  Englishmen  have  e'er  betrayed  him." 

The  True  Born  Englishman,  Part  H. 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  65 

him  four  or  five  servants  whom  he  knew  by  proof  to  be  faithful 
?ven  to  death. 

Nor  was  this  the  only  instance  in  which  our  ancestors  were 
unjust  to  him.  They  had  expected  that,  as  soon  as  so  distin- 
guished a  soldier  and  statesman  was  placed  at  the  head  of 
affairs,  he  would  give  some  signal  proof,  they  scarcely  knew 
what,  of  genius  and  vigour.  Unhappily,  during  the  first  months 
of  his  reign,  almost  everything  went  wrong.  His  subjects, 
bitterly  disappointed,  threw  the  blame  on  him,  and  began  to 
doubt  whether  he  merited  that  reputation  which  he  had  won  at 
his  first  entrance  into  public  life,  and  which  the  splendid  suc- 
cess of  his  last  great  enterprise  had  raised  to  the  highest  point. 
Had  they  been  in  a  temper  to  judge  fairly,  they  would  have 
perceived  that  for  the  maladministration  of  which  they  with 
good  reason  complained  he  was  not  responsible.  He  could  as 
yet  work  only  with  the  machinery  which  he  had  found  ;  and 
the  machinery  which  he  had  found  was  all  rust  and  rottenness. 
From  the  time  of  the  Restoration  to  the  time  of  the  Revolution, 
neglect  and  fraud  had  been  almost  constantly  impairing  the 
efficiency  of  every  department  of  the  government.  Honours 
and  public  trusts,  peerages,  baronetcies,  regiments,  frigates, 
embassies,  governments,  commissionerships,  leases  of  crown 
lands,  contracts  for  clothing,  for  provisions,  for  ammunition, 
pardons  for  murder,  for  robbery,  for  arson,  were  sold  at  White- 
hall scarcely  less  openly  than  asparagus  at  Covent  Garden  or 
herrings  at  Billingsgate.  Brokers  had  been  incessantly  plying 
for  custom  in  the  purlieus  of  the  court ;  and  of  these  brokers 
the  most  successful  had  been,  in  the  days  of  Charles,  the  harlots, 
and  in  the  days  of  James,  the  priests.  From  the  palace,  which 
was  the  chief  seat  of  this  pestilence,  the  taint  had  diffused  itself 
through  every  office,  and  through  every  rank  in  every  office, 
and  had  everywhere  produced  feebleness  and  disorganisation. 
So  rapid  was  the  progress  of  the  decay,  that  within  eight  years 
after  the  time  when  Oliver  had  been  the  umpire  of  Europe,  the 
roar  of  the  guns  of  De  Ruyter  was  heard  in  the  Tower  of.. 
London.  The  vices  which  had  brought  that  great  humiliation 
on  the  country  had  ever  since  been  rooting  themselves  deeper . 
VOL.  III.— 5 


66  HISTOUY    OF    ENGLAND. 

and  spreading  themselves  wider.  James  had,  to  do  him  justice, 
corrected  a  few  of  the  gross  abuses  which  disgraced  the  naval 
administration.  Yet  the  naval  administration,  in  spite  of  his 
attempts  to  reform  it,  moved  the  contempt  of  men  who  were 
acquainted  with  the  dockyards  of  France  and  Holland.  The 
military  administration  was  still  worse.  The  courtiers  took 
bribes  from  the  colonels  :  the  colonels  cheated  the  soldiers  :  the 
commissaries  sent  in  long  bills  for  what  had  never  been  fur- 
nished :  the  keepers  of  the  magazines  sold  the  public  stores  and 
pocketed  the  price.  But  these  evils,  though  they  had  sprung 
into  existence  and  grown  to  maturity  under  the  government  of 
Charles  and  James,  first  made  themselves  severely  felt  under 
the  government  of  William.  For  Charles  and  James  were  con- 
tent to  be  the  vassals  and  pensioners  of  a  powerful  and  am- 
bitious neighbour :  they  submitted  to  his  ascendency :  they 
shunned  with  pusillanimous  caution  whatever  could  give  him 
offence  :  and  thus,  at  the  cost  of  the  independence  and  dignity 
of  that  ancient  and  glorious  crown  which  they  unworthily  wore, 
they  avoided  a  conflict  which  would  instantly  have  shown  how 
helpless,  under  their  misrule,  their  once  formidable  kingdom 
had  become.  Their  ignominious  policy  it  was  neither  in  Wil- 
liam's power  nor  in  his  nature  to  follow.  It  was  only  by  arms 
that  the  liberty  and  religion  of  England  could  be  protected 
against  the  mightiest  enemy  that  had  threatened  our  island  since 
the  Hebrides  were  strown  with  the  wrecks  of  the  Armada.  The 
body  politic,  which,  while  it  remained  in  repose,  had  presented 
a  superficial  appearance  of  health  and  vigour,  was  now  under 
the  necessity  of  straining  every  nerve  in  a  wrestle  for  life  or 
death,  and  was  immediately  found  to  be  unequal  to  the  exertion. 
The  first  efforts  showed  an  utter  relaxation  of  fibre,  an  utter 
want  of  training.  Those  efforts  were,  with  scarcely  an  excep- 
tion, failures  ;  and  every  failure  was  popularly  imputed,  not  to 
the  rulers  whose  mismanagement  had  produced  the  infirmities 
of  the  state,  but  to  the  ruler  in  whose  time  the  infirmities  of  the 
atate  became  visible. 

William  might  indeed,  if  he  had  been  as  absolute  as  Lewis, 
have  used  such  sharp  remedies  as  would  speedily  have  restored 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  67 

to  the  English  administration  that  firm  tone  which  had  been 
wanting  since  the  death  of  Oliver.  But  the  instantaneous  re- 

O 

form  of  inveterate  abuses  was  a  task  far  beyond  the  powers  of  a 
prince  strictly  restrained  by  law,  and  restrained  still  more  strictly 
by  the  difficulties  of  his  situation.* 

Some  of  the  most  serious  difficulties  of  his  situation  were 
caused  by  the  conduct  of  the  ministers  on  whom,  new  as  he 
was  to  the  details  of  English  affairs,  he  was  forced  to  rely  for 
information  about  men  and  things.  There  was  indeed  no  want 
of  ability  among  his  chief  councillors :  but  one  half  of  their 
ability  was  employed  in  counteracting  the  other  half.  Be- 
tween the  Lord  President  and  the  Lord  Privy  Seal  there  was 
an  inveterate  enmity. f  It  had  begun  twelve  years  before 
when  Danby  was  Lord  High  Treasurer,  a  persecutor  of  non- 
conformists, an  uncompromising  defender  of  prerogative,  and 
when  Halifax  w:.«  rising  to  distinction  as  one  of  the  most  elo- 
quent leaders  of  the  country  party.  In  the  reign  of  James, 
the  two  statesmen  had  found  themselves  in  opposition  together ; 
and  their  common  hostility  to  France  and  to  Rome,  to  the  High 
Commission  and  to  the  dispensing  power,  had  produced  an  ap- 
parent reconciliation ;  but  as  soon  as  they  were  in  office  togeth- 
er the  old  antipathy  revived.  The  hatred  which  the  Whig  party 
felt  towards  them  both  ought,  it  should  seem,  to  have  produced 
a  close  alliance  between  them :  but  in  fact  each  of  them  saw 
with  complacency  the  danger  which  threatened  the  other. 
Danby  exerted  himself  to  rally  round  him  a  strong  phalanx  of 
Tories.  Under  the  plea  of  ill  health,  he  withdrew  from  court, 
seldom  came  to  the  Council  over  which  it  was  his  duty  to  pre- 
side, passed  much  time  in  the  country,  and  took  scarcely  any 
part  in  public  affairs  except  by  grumbling  and  sneering  at  all 

*  Ronquillo  had  the  good  sense  and  justice  to  make  allowances  which  the 
English  did  not  make.  After  describing,  in  a  despatch  dated  March  1-11,  1680, 
the  lamentable  state  of  the  military  and  naval  establishments,  he  says,  "De  esto 
no  tiene  culpa  el  Principe  de  Oranges  ;  porque  pensar  que  se  han  de  poder  volver 
en  dos  ineses  tres  Reynos  de  abaxo  arriba  es  nna  extravagancia."  Lord  Pre- 
sident Stair,  in  a  letter  written  from  London  about  a  month  later,  says  thnt  the 
delays  of  the  English  administration  had  lowered tlie  King's  reputation,  "though 
without  his  fault." 

t  liuruet,  ii.,  4  ;  Ilerosby. 


68  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

the  acts  of  the  government,  and  by  doing  jobs  and  getting  places 
for  his  personal  retainers.*  In  consequence  of  this  defection, 
Halifax  became  prime  minister,  as  far  as  any  minister  could, 
in  that  reign,  be  called  prime  minister.  An  immense  load  of 
business  fell  on  him ;  and  that  load  he  was  unable  to  sustain. 
In  wit  and  eloquence,  in  amplitude  of  comprehension  and  sub- 
tlety of  disquisition,  he  had  no  equal  among  the  statesmen  of 
his  time.  But  that  very  fertility,  that  very  acuteness,  which 
gave  a  singular  charm  to  his  conversation,  to  his  oratory,  and  to 
his  writings,  unfitted  him  for  the  work  of  promptly  deciding 
practical  questions.  He  was  slow  from  very  quickness.  For 
he  saw  so  many  arguments  for  and  against  every  possible  course 
that  he  was  longer  in  making  up  his  mind  than  a  dull  man 
would  have  been.  Instead  of  acquiescing  in  his  first  thoughts, 
he  repliedon  himself,  rejoined  on  himself,  and  surrejoined  on 
himself.  Those  who  heard  him  talk  owned  that  he  talked  like 
an  angel :  but  too  often,  when  he  had  exhausted  all  that  could 
be  said,  and  came  to  act,  the  time  for  action  was  over. 

Meanwhile  the  two  Secretaries  of  State  were  constantly 
labouring  to  draw  their  master  in  diametrically  opposite 
directions.  Every  scheme,  every  person,  recommended  by  one 
of  them  was  reprobated  by  the  other.  Nottingham  was  never 
weary  of  repeating  that  the  old  Roundhead  party,  the  party 
which  had  taken  the  life  of  Charles  the  First  and  had  plotted 
against  the  life  of  Charles  the  Second,  was  in  principle  repub- 
lican, and  that  the  Tories  were  the  only  true  friends  of  mon- 
archy. Shrewsbury  replied  that  the  Tories  might  be  friends 
of  monarchy,  but  that  they  regarded  James  as  their  monarch. 
Nottingham  was  always  bringing  to  the  closet  intelligence  of 
the  wild  daydreams  in  which  a  few  old  eaters  of  calf's  head, 
the  remains  of  the  once  formidable  party  of  Bradshaw  and 
Ireton,  still  indulged  at  taverns  in  the  City.  Shrewsbury  pro- 
duced ferocious  lampoons  which  the  Jacobites  dropped  every 
day  in  the  coffeehouses.  •'  Every  "\Vhig,"  said  the  Tory  Sec- 
retary, "  is  an  enemy  of  Your  Majesty's  prerogative."  "  Every 

*  Reresby's  Memoirs  ;  Bumet  MS.  Harl.  6584. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  69 

Tory,"  said  the  "Whig  Secretary,  "is  an  enemy  of  Your  Maj- 
esty's title."* 

At  the  Treasury  there  was  a  complication  of  jealousies  and 
quarrels. f  Both  the  First  Commissioner,  Mordaunt,  and  the 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  Delamere,  were  zealous  Whigs  • 
but  though  they  held  the  same  political  creed,  their  tempers 
differed  widely.  Mordaunt  was  volatile,  dissipated  and  gen* 
erous.  The  wits  of  that  time  laughed  at  the  way  in  which  he 
flew  about  from  Hampton  Court  to  the  Royal  Exchange,  and 
from  the  Royal  Exchange  back  to  Hampton  Court.  How  he 
found  time  for  dress,  politics,  lovemaking,  and  balladmaking 
Was  a  wonder.  $  Delamere  was  gloomy  and  acrimonious, 
austere  in  his  private  morals,  and  punctual  in  his  devotions, 
but  greedy  of  ignoble  gain.  The  two  principal  ministers  of 
finance,  therefore,  became  enemies,  and  agreed  only  in  hating 
their  colleague  Godolphin.  What  business  had  he  at  White- 
hall in  these  days  of  Protestant  ascendency,  he  who  had  sate 
at  the  same  board  with  Papists,  he  who  had  never  scrupled  to 
attend  Mary  of  Modena  to  the  idolatrous  worship  of  the  Mass  ? 
The  most  provoking  circumstance  was  that  Godolphiu,  though 
his  name  stood  only  third  in  the  commission,  was  really  first 
Lord.  For  in  financial  knowledge  and  in  habits  of  business 
Mordaunt  and  Delamere  were  mere  children  when  compared 
with  him  ;  and  this  William  soon  discovered.§ 

Similar  feuds  raged  at  other  great  boards  and  through  all  the 
subordinate  ranks  of  public  functionaries.  In  every  customhouse, 
in  every  arsenal,  were  a  Shrewsbury  and  a  Nottingham,  a 
Delamere  and  a  Godolphin.  The  Whigs  complained  that  there 
was  no  department  in  which  creatures  of  the  fallen  tyranny 
were  not  to  be  found.  It  was  idle  to  allege  that  these  men 
•were  versed  in  the  details  of  business,  that  they  were  the  deposi- 
taries of  official  traditions,  and  that  the  friends  of  liberty,  having 

»  Buruet,  ii.  3,  4,  15.  t  Bumet,  ii.  5. 

j  "  How  does  he  do  to  distribute  his  hours. 

Some  to  the  Court  and  some  to  the  City, 
Some  to  the  State,  and  some  to  Love's  powers, 
Some  to  be  vain,  and  some  to  be  witty  !  " 

The  Modern  Lampooners,  a  poem  of  1COO. 

§  Burnet,  ii.  4. 


70  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

been;  during  many  years,  excluded  from  public  employment, 
must  necessarily  be  incompetent  to  take  on  themselves  at  once 
the  whole  management  of  affairs.  Experience  doubtless  had  its 
value  :  but  surely  the  first  of  all  the  qualifications  of  a  servant 
was  fidelity  ;  and  no  Tory  could  be  a  really  faithful  servant  of 
the  new  government.  If  King  William  were  wise,  he  would 
rather  trust  novices  zealous  for  his  interest  and  honour  than 
veterans,  who  might  indeed  possess  ability  and  knowledge,  but 
who  would  use  that  ability  arid  that  knowledge  to  effect  his  ruin. 

The  Tories,  on  the  other  hand,  complained  that  their  share 
of  power  bore  no  proportion  to  their  number,  or  to  their  weight 
in  the  country,  and  that  everywhere  old  and  useful  public  ser- 
vants were,  for  the  crime  of  being  friends  to  monarchy  and  to 
the  Church,  turned  out  of  their  posts  to  make  way  for  Rye 
House  plotters  and  haunters  of  conventicles.  These  upstarts, 
adepts  in  the  art  of  factious  agitation,  but  ignorant  of  all  that 
belonged  to  their  new  calling,  would  be  just  beginning  to  learn 
their  business  when  they  had  undone  the  nation  by  their  blun- 
ders. To  be  a  rebel  and  a  schismatic  was  surely  not  all  that 
ought  to  be  required  of  a  man  in  high  employment.  What  would 
become  of  the  finances,  what  of  the  marine,  if  Whigs  who  could 
not  understand  the  plainest  balance  sheet  were  to  manage  the 
revenue,  and  Whigs  who  had  never  walked  over  a  dockyard  to 
fit  out  the  fleet  ?  * 

The  truth  is  that  the  charges  which  the  two  parties  brought 
against  each  other  were,  to  a  great  extent,  well  founded,  but 
that  the  blame  which  both  threw  on  William  was  unjust.  Offi- 
cial experience  was  to  be  found  almost  exclusively  among  the 
Tones,  hearty  attachment  to  the  new  settlement  almost  exclu- 
sively among  the  Whigs,  It  was  not  the  fault  of  the  King  that 
the  knowledge  and  the  zeal,  which,  combined,  make  a  valuable 
servant  of  the  state,  must  at  that  time  be  had  separately  or  not 

*  Ronquillo  calls  the  Whig  functionaries  "  Gente  que  no  tienen  pratica  ni  ex- 
peiiencia."  He  adds,  "  Y  de  esto  precede  el  pasarse  un  mes  y  un  otro,  sin  execu- 
tarse  nada."  June  24,  1689.  In  one  of  the  innumerable  Dialogues  -which  ap- 
peared at  that  time,  the  Tory  interlocutor  puts  the  question,  "  Do  you  think  the 
government  would  be  better  served  by  strangers  to  business  ? "  The  Whig 
answers,  "  Better  ignorant  friends  tliau  understanding  enemies." 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  71 

at  all.  If  he  employed  men  of  one  party,  there  was  great  risk 
of  mistakes.  If  he  employed  men  of  the  other  party,  there  was 
great  risk  of  treachery.  If  he  employed  men  of  both  parties 
there  was  still  some  risk  of  mistakes  ;  there  was  still  some  risk 
of  treachery  ;  and  to  these  risks  was  added  the  certainty  of 
dissension.  He  might  join  Whigs  and  Tories  :  but  it  was  beyond 
his  power  to  mix  them.  In  the  same  office,  at  the  same  desk, 
they  were  still  enemies,  and  agreed  only  in  murmuring  at  the 
Prince  who  tried  to  mediate  between  them.  It  was  inevitable 
that,  in  such  circumstances,  the  administration,  fiscal,  military, 
naval,  should  be  feeble  and  unsteady  ;  that  nothing  should  be 
done  in  quite  the  right  way  or  at  quite  the  right  time  :  that  the 
distractions  from  which  scarcely  any  public  office  was  exempt 
should  produce  disasters,  and  that  every  disaster  should  increase 
the  distractions  from  which  it  had  sprung. 

There  was  indeed  one  department  of  which  the  business  was 
well  conducted  ;  and  that  was  the  department  of  Foreign  Af- 
fairs. There  William  directed  everything,  and,  on  important 
occasions,  neither  asked  the  advice  nor  employed  the  agency 
of  any  English  politician.  One  invaluable  assistant  he  had, 
Anthony  Heinsius,  who,  a  few  weeks  after  the  Revolution  had 
been  accomplished,  became  Pensionary  of  Holland.  Heinsius 
had  entered  public  life  as  a  member  of  that  party  which  was 
jealous  of  the  power  of  the  House  of  Orange,  and  desirous  to 
be  on  friendly  terms  with  France.  But  he  had  been  sent  in 
1681  on  a  diplomatic  mission  to  Versailles;  and  a  short  resi- 
dence there  had  produced  a  complete  change  in  his  views.  On 
a  near  acquaintance,  he  was  alarmed  by  the  power  and  pro- 
voked by  the  insolence  of  that  Court  of  which,  while  he  con- 
templated it  only  at  a  distance,  he  had  formed  a  favourable 
opinion.  He  found  that  his  country  was  despised.  He  saw  his 
religion  persecuted.  His  official  character  did  not  save  him 
from  some  personal  affronts  which,  to  the  latest  day  of  his  long 
career,  he  never  forgot.  He  went  home  a  devoted  adherent  of 
William  and  a  mortal  enemy  of  Lewis.* 

»  N^gociations  de  M.  Le  Comte  d'Avaux,  4  Mars  1683 ;  Torcy's  Memoirs. 


72  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

The  office  of  Pensionary,  always  important,  was  peculiarly 
important  when  the  Stadtholder  was  absent  from  the  Hague. 
Had  the  politics  of  Heinsius  been  still  what  they  once  were,  all 
the  great  designs  of  William  might  have  been  frustrated.  But 
happily  there  was  between  these  two  eminent  men  a  perfect 
friendship,  which,  till  death  dissolved  it,  appears  never  to  have 
been  interrupted  for  one  moment  by  suspicion  or  ill  humour. 
On  all  large  questions  of  European  policy  they  cordially  agreed. 
They  corresponded  assiduously  and  most  unreservedly.  For, 
though  William  was  slow  to  give  his  confidence,  yet,  when  he 
gave  it,  he  gave  it  entire.  The  correspondence  is  still  extant, 
and  is  most  honourable  to  both.  The  King's  letters  would 
alone  suffice  to  prove  that  he  was  one  of  the  greatest  statesmen 
whom  Europe  has  produced.  While  he  lived,  the  Pensionary 
was  content  to  be  the  most  obedient,  the  most  trusty,  and  the 
most  discreet  of  servants.  But,  after  the  death  of  the  master, 
the  servant  proved  himself  capable  of  supplying  with  eminent 
ability  the  master's  place,  and  was  renowned  throughout  Europe 
as  one  of  the  great  Triumvirate  which  humbled  the  pride  of 
Lewis  the  Fourteenth.* 

The  foreign  policy  of  England,  directed  immediately  by 
William  in  close  concert  with  Heinsius,  was,  at  this  time,  emi- 
nently skilful  and  successful.  But  in  every  other  part  of  the 
administration  the  evils  arising  from  the  mutual  animosity  of 
factions  were  but  too  plainly  discernible.  Nor  was  this  all.  To 
the  evils  arising  from  the  mutual  animosity  of  factions  were 
added  other  evils  arising  from  the  mutual  animosity  of  sects. 

The  year  1689  is  a  not  less  important  epoch  in  the  ecclesi- 
astical than  in  the  civil  history  of  England.  In  that  year  was 
granted  the  first  legal  indulgence  to  Dissenters.  In  that  year 
was  made  the  last  serious  attempt  to  bring  the  Presbyterians 

*  The  original  correspondence  of  William  and  Heinsius  is  in  Dutch.  A 
French  translation  of  all  William's  letters,  and  an  English  translation  of  a  few 
of  Heinsius's  letters,  are  among  the  Mackintosh  MSS.  The  Baron  Sirtema  de 
Grovestins,  who  has  had  access  to  the  originals,  frequently  quotes  passages  in 
his  "  Histoire  des  luttes  et  rivalit^s  entre  les  puissances maritimes  et  la  France." 
There  is  very  little  difference  in  substance,  though  much  in  phraseology,  between 
Ms  .version  and  that  which  I  have  used. 


WILLIAM   AND   MAKY.  73 

within  the  pale  of  the  Church  of  England.  From  that  year 
dates  a  new  schism  made  in  defiance  of  ancient  precedents,  by 
men  who  had  always  professed  to  regard  schism  with  peculiar 
abhorrence,  and  ancient  precedents  with  peculiar  veneration. 
In  that  year  began  the  long  struggle  between  two  great  parties 
of  conformists.  Those  parties  indeed  had,  under  various  forms, 
existed  within  the  Anglican  communion  ever  since  the  Reforma- 
tion ;  but  till  after  the  Revolution  they  did  not  appear  marshalled 
in  regular  and  permanent  order  of  battle  against  each  other,  and 
were  therefore  not  known  by  established  names.  Some  time 
after  the  accession  of  William  they  began  to  be  called  the  High 
Church  party  and  the  Low  Church  party  ;  and,  long  before  tho 
end  of  his  reign,  these  appellations  were  in  common  use.* 

In  the  summer  of  1688  the  breaches  which  had  long  divided 
the  great  body  of  English  Protestants  had  seemed  to  be  almost 
closed.  Disputes  about  Bishops  and  Synods,  written  prayers 
and  extemporaneous  prayers,  white  gowns  and  black  gowns, 
sprinkling  and  dipping,  kneeling  and  sitting,  had  been  for  a  short 
space  intermitted.  The  serried  array  which  was  then  drawn  up 
against  Popery  measured  the  whole  of  the  vast  interval  which 
separated  Sancroft  from  Bunyan.  Prelates  recently  conspicuous 
as  persecutors,  now  declared  themselves  friends  of  religious 
liberty,  and  exhorted  their  clergy  to  live  in  a  constant  inter- 
change of  hospitality  and  of  kind  offices  with  the  Separatists. 
Separatists,  on  the  other  hand,  who  had  recently  considered 
mitres  and  lawn  sleeves  as  the  livery  of  Antichrist,  were  putting 
candles  in  windows  and  throwing  faggots  on  bonfires  in  honour 
of  the  prelates. 

These  feelings  continued  to  grow  till  they  attained  their 
greatest  height  on  the  memorable  day  on  which  the  common 
oppressor  finally  quitted  Whitehall,  and  on  which  an  innumer- 
able multitude,  tricked  out  in  orange  ribands,  welcomed  the 
common  deliverer  to  St.  James's.  When  the  clergy  of  London 
came,  headed  by  Compton,  to  express  their  gratitude  to  him  by 

*  Though  these  very  convenient  names  are  not,  as  far  as  I  know,  to  be  found 
in  any  book  printed  during  the  earlier  years  of  William's  reign,  I  shall  use  them 
without  scruple,  as  others  have  done,  in  writing  about  the  transactions  of  those 
years. 


74  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

whose  instrumentality  God  had  wrought  salvation  for  the  Church 
and  the  State,  the  procession  was  swollen  by  some  eminent 
nonconformist  divines.  It  was  delightful  to  many  good  men  to 
hear  that  pious  and  learned  Presbyterian  ministers  had  walked 
in  the  train  of  a  Bishop,  had  been  greeted  by  him  with  fraternal 
kindness,  and  had  been  announced  by  him  in  the  presence  cham- 
ber as  his  dear  and  respected  friends,  separated  from  him  indeed 
by  some  differences  of  opinion  on  minor  points,  but  united  to 
him  by  Christian  charity  and  by  common  zeal  for  the  essentials 
of  tho  reformed  faith.  There  had  never  before  been  such  a 
day  in  England  ;  and  there  has  never  since  been  such  a  day. 
The  tide  of  feeling  was  already  on  the  turn  ;  and  the  ebb  was 
even  more  rapid  than  the  flow  had  been.  In  a  very  few  hours 
the  High  Churchman  began  to  feel  tenderness  for  the  enemy 
whose  tyranny  was  now  no  longer  feared,  and  dislike  of  the 
allies  whose  services  were  now  no  longer  needed.  It  was  easy 
to  gratify  both  feelings  by  imputing  to  the  Dissenters  the  mis- 
government  of  the  exiled  King.  His  Majesty, — such  was  now 
the  language  of  too  many  Anglican  divines,  would  have  been  an 
excellent  sovereign  had  he  not  been  too  confiding,  too  for- 
giving. He  had  put  his  trust  in  a  class  of  men  who 
hated  his  office,  his  family,  his  person,  with  implacable 
hatred.  He  had  ruined  himself  in  the  vain  attempt  to  con- 
ciliate them.  He  had  relieved  them,  in  defiance  of  law  and  of 
the  unanimous  sense  of  the  old  royalist  party,  from  the  pressure 
of  the  penal  code ;  had  allowed  them  to  worship  God  publicly 
after  their  own  mean  and  tasteless  fashion  ;  had  admitted  them 
to  the  bench  of  justice  and  to  the  Privy  Council ;  had  gratified 
them  with  fur  robes,  gold  chains,  salaries,  and  pensions.  In 
return  for  his  liberality,  these  people,  once  so  uncouth  in  de- 
meanour, once  so  savage  in  opposition  even  to  legitimate  au- 
thority, had  become  the  most  abject  of  flatterers.  They  had 
continued  to  applaud  and  encourage  him  when  the  most  devoted 
friends  of  his  family  had  retired  in  shame  and  sorrow  from  his 
palace.  Who  had  more  foully  sold  the  religion  and  liberty  of 
England  than  Titus  ?  Who  had  been  more  zealous  for  the  dis- 
pensing power  than  Alsop  ?  Who  had  urged  on  the  persecution 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  75 

of  the  seven  Bishops  more  fiercely  than  Lobb  ?  What  chaplain, 
impatient  for  a  deanery  had  ever,  even  when  preaching  in  the 
royal  presence  on  the  thirtieth  of  January  or  the  twenty-ninth 
of  May,  uttered  adulation  more  gross  than  might  easily  be  found 
in  those  addresses  by  which  dissenting  congregations  had  testified 
their  gratitude  for  the  illegal  Declaration  of  Indulgence  ?  "Was 
it  strange  that  a  prince  who  had  never  studied  law  books  should 
have  believed  that  he  was  only  exercising  his  rightful  preroga- 
tive, when  he  was  thus  encoui'aged  by  a  faction  which  had 
always  ostentatiously  professed  hatred  of  arbitrary  power  ? 
Misled  by  such  guidance  he  had  gone  further  and  further  in  the 
wrong  path  :  he  had  at  length  estranged  from  him  hearts  which 
would  once  have  poured  forth  their  best  blood  in  his  defence  :  he 
had  left  himself  no  supporters  except  his  old  foes  ;  and,  when 
the  day  of  peril  came,  he  had  found  that  the  feeling  of  his  old 
foes  towards  him  was  still  what  it  had  been  when  they  had  at- 
tempted to  rob  him  of  his  inheritance,  and  when  they  had  plotted 
against  his  life.  Every  man  of  sense  had  long  known  that  the 
sectaries  bore  no  love  to  monarchy.  It  had  now  been  found 
that  they  bore  as  little  love  to  freedom.  To  trust  them  with 
power  would  be  an  error  not  less  fatal  to  the  nation  than  to  the 
throne.  If,  in  order  to  redeem  pledges  somewhat  rashly  given 
it  should  be  thought  necessary  to  grant  them  relief,  every  con- 
cession ought  to  be  accompanied  by  limitations  and  precautions. 
Above  all,  no  man  who  was  an  enemy  to  the  ecclesiastical  con- 
stitution of  the  realm  ought  to  be  permitted  to  bear  any  part  in 
the  civil  government. 

Between  the  nonconformists  and  the  rigid  conformists  stood 
the  Low  Church  party.  That  party  contained,  as  it  still 
contains,  two  very  different  elements,  a  Puritan  element  and 
a  Latitudinarian  element.  On  almost  every  question,  how- 
ever, relating  either  to  ecclesiastical  polity  or  to  the  ceremo- 
nial of  public  worship,  the  Puritan  Low  Churchman  and  the 
Latitudinarian  Low  Churchman  were  perfectly  agreed.  They 
saw  in  the  existing  polity  and  in  the  existing  ceremonial  no 
defect,  no  blemish,  which  could  make  it  their  duty  to  become 
dissenters.  Nevertheless  they  held  that  both  the  polity  and 


76  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

the  ceremonial  were  means  and  not  ends,  and  that  the  essential 
spirit  of  Christianity  might  exist  without  episcopal  orders  and 
without  a  Book  of  Common  Prayer  They  had,  while  James 
was  on  the  throne,  been  mainly  instrumental  iu  forming  the 
great  Protestant  coalition  against  Popery  and  tyranny  ;  and 
they  continued  in  1689  to  hold  the  same  conciliatory  language 
which  they  had  held  in  1688.  They  gently  blamed  the  scruples 
of  the  nonconformists.  It  was  undoubtedly  a  great  weakness 
to  imagine  that  there  could  be  any  sin  in  wearing  a  white  robe, 
in  tracing  a  cross,  in  kneeling  at  the  rails  of  an  altar.  But  the 
highest  authority  had  given  the  plainest  directions  as  to  the  man- 
ner in  which  such  weakness  was  to  be  treated.  The  weak  brother 
was  not  to  be  judged :  he  was  not  to  be  despised :  believers 
who  had  stronger  minds  were  commanded  to  soothe  him  by  large 
compliances,  and  carefully  to  remove  out  of  his  path  every  stum- 
blingblock  which  could  cause  him  to  offend.  An  apostle  had 
declared  that,  though  he  had  himself  no  misgivings  about  the 
use  of  animal  food  or  of  wine,  he  would  eat  herbs  and  drink 
water  rather  than  give  scandal  to  the  feeblest  of  his  flock. 
What  would  he  have  thought  of  ecclesiastical  rulers  who,  for 
the  sake  of  a  vestment,  a  gesture,  a  posture,  had  not  only  torn 
the  Church  asunder,  but  had  filled  all  the  gaols  of  England  with 
men  of  orthodox  faith  and  saintly  life  ?  The  reflections  thrown 
by  the  High  Churchmen  on  the  recent  conduct  of  the  dissenting 
body  the  Low  Churchmen  pronounced  to  be  grossly  unjust. 
The  wonder  was,  not  that  a  few  nonconformists  should  have  ac- 
cepted with  thanks  an  indulgence  which,  illegal  as  it  was,  had 
opened  the  doors  of  their  prisons  and  given  security  to  their 
hearths,  but  that  the  nonconformists  generally  should  have  been 
true  to  the  cause  of  a  constitution  from  the  benefits  of  which 
they  had  been  long  excluded.  It  was  most  unfair  to  impute 
to  a  great  party  the  faults  of  a  few  individuals.  Even  among 
the  Bishops  of  the  established  Church  James  had  found  tools 
and  sycophants.  The  conduct  of  Cartwright  and  Parker  had 
been  much  more  inexcusable  than  that  of  Alsop  and  Lobb.  Yet 
those  who  held  the  Dissenters  answerable  for  the  errors  of  Alsop 
and  Lobb  would  doubtless  think  it  most  unreasonable  to  hold 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  77 

the  Church  answerable  for  the  far  deeper  guilt  of  Cartwright 
and  Parker. 

The  Low  Church  clergymen  were  a  minority,  and  not  a  largo 
minority,  of  their  profession  :  but  their  weight  was  much  more 
than  proportioned  to  their  numbers  :  for  they  mustered  strong 
in  the  capital :  they  had  great  influence  there  ;  and  the  average 
of  intellect  and  knowledge  was  higher  among  them  than  among 
their  order  generally.  We  should  probably  overrate  their 
numerical  strength,  if  we  were  to  estimate  them  at  a  tenth  part 
of  the  priesthood.  Yet  it  will  scarcely  be  denied  that  there 
were  among  them  as  many  men  of  distinguished  eloquence  and 
learning  as  could  be  found  in  the  other  nine  tenths.  Among 
the  laity  who  conformed  to  the  established  religion  the  parties 
were  not  unevenly  balanced.  Indeed  the  line  which  separated 
them  deviated  very  little  from  the  line  which  separa  ed  the 
Whigs  and  the  Tories.  In  the  House  of  Commons,  which  had 
been  elected  when  the  Whigs  were  triumphant,  the  Low  Church 
party  greatly  preponderated.  In  the  Lords  there  was  an 
almost  exact  equipoise ;  and  very  slight  circumstances  sufficed  to 
turn  the  scale. 

The  head  of  the  Low  Church  party  was  the  King.  He  had 
been  bred  a  Presbyterian:  he  was,  from  rational  conviction,  a 
Latitudinarian  ;  and  personal  ambition,  as  well  as  higher  mo- 
tives, prompted  him  to  act  as  mediator  among  Protestant  sects. 
He  was  bent  on  effecting  three_great  reforms  in  the  laws  touch- 
ing ecclesiastical  matters.  His  first  object  was  to  obtain  for 
dissenters  permission  to  celebrate  their  worship  in  freedom  and 
security.  His  second  object  was  to  make  such  changes  in  the 
Anglican  ritual  and  polity  as,  without  offending  those  to  whom 
that  ritual  and  that  polity  were  dear,  might  conciliate  the  moder- 
ate nonconformists.  His  third  object  was  to  throw  open  civil 
offices  to  Protestants  without  distinction  of  sect.  All  his  three 
objects  were  good  ;  but  the  first  only  was  at  that  time  attainable. 
He  came  too  late  for  the  second,  and  too  early  for  the  third. 

A  few  davs  after  his  accession,  he  took  a  step  which  indi- 
cated, in  a  manner  not  to  be  mistaken,  his  sentiments  touch- 
ing ecclesiastical  polity  and  public  worship^.  He  found  only 


78  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

one  see  unprovided  with  a  Bishop.  Seth  Ward,  who  hn<1 
during  many  years  had  charge  of  the  diocese  of  Salisbury, 
and  who  had  been  honourably  distinguished  as  one  of  the 
founders  of  the  Royal  Society,  having  long  survived  his 
faculties,  died  while  the  country  was  agitated  by  the  elections 
for  the  Convention,  without  knowing  that  great  events,  of 
which  not  the  least  important  had  passed  under  his  own  roof, 
had  saved  his  Church  and  his  country  from  ruin.  The  choice 
of  a  successor  was  no  light  matter.  That  choice  would  inevit- 
ably be  considered  by  the  country  as  a  prognostic  of  the  high- 
est import.  The  King  too  might  well  be  perplexed  by  the 
number  of  divines  whose  erudition,  eloquence,  courage,  and  up- 
rightness had  been  conspicuously  displayed  during  the  conten- 
tions of  the  last  three  years.  The  preference  was  given  to 
Burnet.  His  claims  were  doubtless  great.  Yet  William  might 
have  had  a  more  tranquil  reign  if  he  had  postponed  for  a  time 
the  well  earned  promotion  of  his  chaplain,  and  had  bestowed 
the  first  great  spiritual  preferment,  which,  after  the  Revolution, 
fell  to  the  disposal  of  the  Crown,  on  Some  eminent  theologian, 
attached  to  the  new  settlement,  yet  not  generally  hated  by  the 
clergy.  Unhappily  the  name  of  Burnet  was  odious  to  the  great 
majority  of  the  Anglican  priesthood.  Though,  as  respected  doc- 
trine, he  by  no  means  belonged  to  the  extreme  section  of  the 
Latitudinarian  party,  he  was  popularly  regarded  as  the  person- 
ification of  the  Latitudinarian  spirit.  This  distinction  he  owed 
to  the  prominent  place  which  he  held  in  literature  and  politics, 
to  the  readiness  of  his  tongue  and  of  his  pen,  and  above  all  to 
the  frankness  and  boldness  of  his  nature,  frankness,  which  could 
keep  no  secret,  and  boldness  which  flinched  from  no  danger. 
He  had  formed  but  a  low  estimate  of  the  character  of  his  cleri- 
cal brethren  considered  as  a  body ;  and  with  his  usual  indiscre- 
tion, he  frequently  suffered  his  opinion  to  escape  him.  They 
hated  him  in  return  with  a  hatred  which  has  descended  to  their 
successors,  and  which,  after  the  lapse  of  a  century  and  a  half, 
does  not  appear  to  languish. 

As  soon  as  the  King's  decision  was  known,  the  question  was 
everywhere  asked,  What   will   the  Archbishop  do?    Saiicroft 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  79 

had  absented  himself  from  the  Convention  :  he  had  refused  to 
sit  in  the  Privy  Council :  he  had  ceased  to  confirm,  to  ordain, 
and  to  institute  ;  and  he  was  seldom  seen  beyond  the  walls  of  his 
palace  at  Lambeth.  He,  on  all  occasions,  professed  to  think 
himself  still  bound  by  his  old  oath  of  allegiance.  Buruet  he  re- 
garded as  a  scandal  to  the  priesthood,  a  Presbyterian  in  a  sur 
plice.  The  prelate  who  should  lay  hands  on  that  unworthy 
head  would  commit  more  than  one  great  sin.  He  would,  in  a 
sacred  place,  and  before  a  great  congregation  of  the  faithful,  at 
once  acknowledge  an  usurper  as  a  King,  and  confer  on  a  schis- 
matic the  character  of  a  Bishop.  During  some  time  Bancroft 
positively  declared  that  he  would  not  obey  the  precept  of  Wil- 
liam. Lloyd  of  Saint  Asaph,  who  was  the  common  friend  of  the 
Archbishop  and  of  the  Bishop  elect,  entreated  and  expostulated 
in  vain*.  Nottingham,  who,  of  all  the  laymen  connected  with 
the  new  government,  stood  best  with  the  clergy,  tried  his  in- 
fluence, but  to  no  better  purpose.  The  Jacobites  said  every- 
where that  they  were  sure  of  the  good  old  Primate  ;  that  he  had 
the  spirit  of  a  martyr  ;  that  he  was  determined  to  brave,  in  the 
cause  of  the  Monarchy  and  of  the  Church,  the  utmost  rigour  of 
those  laws  with  which  the  obsequious  parliaments  of  the  six- 
teenth century  hud  fenced  the  Royal  Supremacy.  He  did  in 
truth  hold  out  long.  But  at  the  last  moment  his  heart  failed 
him,  and  he  looked  round  him  for  some  mode  of  escape.  For- 
tunately, as  childish  scruples  often  disturbed  his  conscience, 
childish  expedients  often  quieted  it.  A  more  childish  expedient 
than  that  to  which  he  now  resorted  is  not  to  be  found  in  all  the 
tomes  of  the  casuists.  He  would  not  himself  bear  a  part  in  the 
service.  He  would  not  publicly  pray  for  the  Prince  and  Prin- 
cess as  King  and  Queen.  He  would  not  call  for  their  mandate, 
order  it  to  be  read,  and  then  proceed  to  obey  it.  But  he  issued 
a  commission  empowering  any  three  of  his  suffragans  to  commit 
in  his  name,  and  as  his  delegates,  the  sins  which  he  did  not 
choose  to  commitin  person.  The  reproaches  of  all  parties  soon 
made  him  ashamed  of  himself.  He  then  tried  to  suppress  the 
evidence  of  his  fault  by  means  more  discreditable  than  the 
fault  itself.  He  abstracted  from  among  the  public  records  of 


80  HISTORY   OP    ENGLAND. 

which  he  was  the  guardian  the  instrument  by  which  he  had  au- 
thorised his  brethren  to  act  for  him,  and  was  with  difficulty  in- 
duced to  give  it  up.* 

Buruet  however  had,  under  the  authority  of  this  instru- 
ment, been  consecrated.  When  he  next  waited  on  Mary,  she 
reminded  him  of  the  conversations  which  they  had  held  at  the 
Hague  about  the  high  duties  and  grave  responsibility  of 
Bishops-  "  I  hope,"  die  said,  "  that  you  will  put  your  notions 
in  practice."  Her  hope  was  not  disappointed.  Whatever  may 
be  thought  of  Burnet's  opinions  touching  civil  and  ecclesiastical 
polity,  or  of  the  temper  and  judgment  which  he  showed  in  de- 
fending those  opinions,  the  utmost  malevolence  of  faction  could 
not  venture  to  deny  that  he  tended  his  flock  with  a  zeal,  dili- 
gence, and  disinterestedness  worthy  of  the  purest  ages  01  the 
Church.  His  jurisdiction  extended  over  Wiltshire  and  Berk- 
shire. These  counties  he  divided  into  districts  which  he  sedu- 
lously visited.  About  two  mouths  of  every  summer  he  passed 
in  preaching,  catechising,  and  confirming  daily  from  church  to 
church.  When  he  died  there  was  no  corner  of  his  diocese  in 
which  the  people  had  not  had  seven  or  eight  opportunities  of 
receiving  his  instructions  and  of  asking  his  advice.  The  worst 
weather,  the  worst  roads,  did  not  prevent  him  from  discharging 
these  duties.  On  one  occasion,  when  the  floods  were  out,  he 
exposed  his  life  to  imminent  risk  rather  than  disappoint  a  rural 
congregation  which  was  in  expectation  of  a  discourse  from  the 
Bishop.  The  poverty  of  the  inferior  clergy  was  a  constant 
cause  of  uneasiness  to  his  kind  and  generous  heart.  He  was 
indefatigable  and  at  length  successful  in  his  attempts  to  obtain 
for  them  from  the  Crown  that  grant  which  is  known  by  the 
name  of  Queen  Anne's  Bounty,  f  He  was  especially  careful, 
when  he  travelled  through  his  diocese,  to  lay  no  burden  on  them. 
Instead  of  requiring  them  to  entertain  him,  he  entertained 
them.  He  always  fixed  his  head  quarters  at  a  market  town, 

*  Burnet,  ii.  8;  Birch's  Life  of  Tillotson;  Life  of  Kettlewell,  part  iii.  section  H2. 

t  Swift  willing  under  the  name  of  Gregory  Misosarum,  most  malignantly  and 
dishonestly  represents  Burnet  as  grudging  this  grant  to  the  Church.  Swift  can- 
not have  been  Ignorant  that  the  Church  was  indebted  for  the  grant  chiefly  to 
Burnet's  persevering  exertions. 


WILLIAM   AND   MART.  81 

kept  a  table  there,  and,  by  his  decent  hospitality  and  munifi- 
cent charities,  tried  to  conciliate  those  who  were  prejudiced 

against  his  doctrines.     When  he  bestowed  a  poor  benefice, 

and  he  had  many  such  to  bestow, — his  practice  was  to  add  out 
of  his  own  purse  twenty  pounds  a  year  to  the  income.  Ten 
promising  young  men,  to  each  of  whom  he  allowed  thirty 
pounds  a  year,  studied  divinity  under  his.  own  eye  in  the  close 
of  Salisbury.  He  had  several  children  :  but  he  did  not  think 
himself  justified  in  hoarding  for  them.  Their  mother  had 
brought  him  a  good  fortune.  With  that  fortune,  he  always 
said,  they  must  be  content.  He  would  not,  for  their  sakes,  be 
guilty  of  the  crime  of  raising  an  estate  out  of  revenues  sacred 
to  piety  and  charity.  Such  merits  as  these  will,  in  the  judg- 
ment of  wise  and  candid  men,  appear  fully  to  atone  for  every 
offence  which  can  be  justly  imputed  to  him.* 

When  he  took  his  seat  in  the  House  of  Lords,  he  found  that 
assembly  busied  in  ecclesiastical  legislation.  A  statesman  who 
was  well  known  to  be  devoted  to  the  Church  had  undertaken 
to  plead  the  cause  of  the  Dissenters.  No  subject  in  the  realm 
occupied  so  important  and  commanding  a  position  with  refer- 
ence to  religious  parties  as  Nottingham.  To  the  influence 
derived  from  rank,  from  wealth,  and  from  office,  he  added  the 
higher  influence  which  belongs  to  knowledge,  to  eloquence,  and 
to  integrity.  The  orthodoxy  of  his  creed,  the  regularity  of  his 
devotions,  and  the  purity  of  his  morals  gave  a  peculiar  weight 
to  his  opinions  on  questions  in  which  the  interests  of  Christian- 
ity were  concerned.  Of  all  the  ministers  of  the  new  Sovereigns, 
he  had  the  largest  share  of  the  confidence  of  the  clergy.  Shrews- 
bury was  certainly  a  Whig,  and  probably  a  freethinker  :  he  had 
lost  one  religion  ;  and  it  did  not  very  clearly  appear  that  he 
had  found  another.  Halifax  had  been  during  many  years  ac- 

*  See  the  Life  of  Burnet,  at  the  end  of  the  second  volume  of  his  liistory,  his 
manuscript  memoirs,  Harl.  6584,  his  memorials  touching  the  First  Fruits  and 
Tenths,  and  Somers's  letter  to  him  on  that  subject.  See  also  what  Dr.  King, 
Jacobite  as  he  was.  had  the  justice  to  say  in  his  Anecdotes.  A  most  honourable 
testimony  to  Bnrnet's  virtues,  piven  by  another  Jacobite  who  had  attacked  him 
fiercely,  and  whom  he  hnd  treatorl  ppnerou«ly.  the  learned  and  upright  Thomas 
Baker,  will  be  found  in  the  Gentleman's  Magazine  for  August  and  September. 
1791. 

VOL.  in.— 6 


82  HISTOKY   OF    ENGLAND. 

cused  of  scepticism,  deism,  atheism.  Danny's  attachment  to 
episcopacy  and  the  liturgy  was  rather  political  than  religious. 
But  Nottingham  was  such  a  son  as  the  Church  was  proud  to 
own.  Propositions  therefore,  which,  if  made  by  his  colleagues, 
would  infallibly  produce  a  violent  panic  among  the  clergy,miglit, 
if  made  by  him,  find  a  favourable  reception  even  in  universities 
and  chapter  houses.  The  friends  of  religious  liberty  were  with 
good  reason  desirous  to  obtain  his  cooperation  ;  and,  up  to  a 
certain  point,  he  was  not  unwilling  to  cooperate  with  them.  He 
was  decidedly  for  a  toleration.  He  was  even  for  what  was  then 
called  a  comprehension  :  that  is  to  say,  he  was  desirous  to  make 
some  alterations  in  the  Anglican  discipline  and  ritual  for  the 
purpose  of  removing  the  scruples  of  the  moderate  Presbyterians. 
But  he  was  not  prepared  to  give  up  the  Test  Act.  The  only 
fault  which  he  found  with  that  Act  was  that  it  was  not  suffi- 
ciently stringent,  and  that  it  left  loopholes  through  which 
schismatics  sometimes  crept  into  civil  employments.  In  truth 
it  was  because  he  was  not  disposed  to  part  with  the  Test  that 
he  was  willing  to  consent  to  socie  changes  in  the  Liturgy.  He 
conceived  that,  if  the  entrance  of  the  Church  were  but  a  very 
little  widened,  great  numbers  who  had  hitherto  lingered  near 
the  threshold  would  press  in.  Those  who  still  remained  with- 
out would  then  not  be  sufficiently  numerous  or  powerful  to 
extort  any  further  concession,  and  would  be  glad  to  compound 
for  a  bare  toleration.* 

The  opinion  of  the  Low  Churchmen  concerning  the  Test 
Act  differed  widely  from  his.  But  many  of  them  thought  that 
it  was  of  the  highest  importance  to  have  his  support  on  the 
great  questions  of  Toleration  and  Comprehension.  From  the 
scattered  fragments  of  information  which  have  come  down  to 
us,  it  appears  that  a  compromise  was  made.  It  is  quite  certain 
that  Nottingham  undertook  to  bring  in  a  Toleration  Bill  and  a 
Comprehension  Bill,  and  to  use  his  best  endeavours  to  carry 
both  bills  through  the  House  of  Lords.  It  is  highly  probable 

*  Oldmixon  would  have  us  believe  that  Nottingham  was  not,  at  this  time, 
•unwilling  to  give  up  the  Test  Act.  But  Oldmixon's  assertion,  unsupported  by 
evidence,  is  of  no  weight  whatever ;  and  all  the  evidence  which  he  produces 
makes  against  his  assertion. 


WILLIAM   AND   MARY.  85 

that,  in  return  for  this  great  service,  some  of  the  leading  Whigs 
consented  to  let  the  Test  Act  remain  for  the  present  unaltered. 

There  was  no  difficulty  in  framing  either  the  Toleration 
Bill  or  the  Comprehension  Bill.  The  situation  of  the  dissent- 
ers had  been  much  discussed  nine  or  ten  years  before,  when  the 
kingdom  was  distracted  by  the  fear  of  a  P'opish  plot,  and  when 
there  was  among  Protestants  a  general  disposition  to  unite 
against  the  common  enemy,  The  government  had  then  bean 
willing  to  make  large  concessions  to  the  Whig  party,  on  con- 
dition that  the  crown  should  be  suffered  to  descend  according  to 
the  regular  course.  A  draught  of  a  law  authorizing  the  public 
worship  of  the  Nonconformists,  and  a  draught  of  a  law  making 
some  alterations  in  the  public  worship  of  the  Established  Church, 
had  been  prepared,  and  would  probably  have  been  passed  by 
both  Houses  without  difficulty,  had  not  Shaftesbury  and  his 
coadjutors  refused  to  listen  to  any  terms,  and,  by  grasping  at 
what  was  beyond  their  reach,  missed  advantages  which  might 
easily  have  been  secured.  In  the  framing  of  these  draughts, 
Nottingham,  then  an  active  member  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
had  borne  a  considerable  part.  He  now  brought  them  forth 
from  the  obscurity  in  which  they  had  remained  since  the  disso- 
lution of  the  Oxford  Parliament,  and  laid  them,  with  some  slight, 
alterations,  on  the  table  of  the  Lords.* 

The  Toleration  Bill  passed  both  Houses  with  little  debate. 
This  celebrated  statute,  long  considered  as  the  Great  Charter 
of  religious  liberty,  has  since  been  extensively  modified,  and  is 
hardly  known  to  the  present  generation  except  by  name.  The 
name,  however,  is  still  pronounced  with  respect  by  many  who 
will  perhaps  learn  with  surprise  and  disappointment  the  real 
nature  of  the  law  which  they  have  been  accustomed  to  hold  in, 
honour. 

Several  statutes  which  had  been  passed  between  the  acces- 
sion of  Queen  Elizabeth  andv  the  Revolution  required  all  people 

*  Burnet,  ii.  6;  Van  Citters  to  the  States  General,  March  1-11,  168!);  King 
William's  Toleration,  being  an  explanation  of  that  liberty  of  conscience  which 
maybe  expected  from  His  Majesty's  Declaration,  with  a  Bill  for  Comprehension 
and  Indulgence,  drawii  up  iu  order  to  au  Act  of  1'uiUuuicm,  licensed  March  25, 
MM. 


84  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

under  severe  penalties  to  attend  the  services  of  the  Church  of 
England,  and  to  abstain  from  attending  conventicles.  The 
Toleration  Act  did  not  repeal  any  of  these  statutes,  but  merely 
provided  that  they  should  not  be  construed  to  extend  to  any 
person  who  should  testify  his  loyalty  by  taking  the  Oaths  of 
Allegiance  and  Supremacy,  and  his  Protestantism  by  subscribing 
the  Declaration  against  Transubstantiatiou. 

The  relief  thus  granted  was  common  between  the  dissenting 
laity  and  the  dissenting  clergy.  But  the  dissenting  clergy  had 
some  peculiar  grievances.  The  Act  of  Uniformity  had  laid  a 
mulct  of  a  hundred  pounds  on  every  person  who,  not  having 
received  episcopal  ordination,  should  presume  to  administer  the 
Eucharist.  The  Five  Mile  Act  had  driven  many  pious  and 
learned  ministers  from  their  houses  and  their  friends,  to  live 
among  rustics  in  obscure  villages  of  which  the  name  was  not  to 
be  seen  on  the  map.  The  Conventicle  Act  had  imposed  heavy 
fines  on  divines  who  should  preach  in  any  meeting  of  separatists  ; 
and,  in  direct  opposition  to  the  humane  spirit  of  our  law,  the 
Courts  were  enjoined  to  construe  this  act  largely  and  benefi- 
cially for  the  suppressing  of  dissent  and  for  the  encouraging  of 
informers.  These  severe  statutes  were  not  repealed,  but  were, 
with  many  conditions  and  precautions,  relaxed.  It  was  pro- 
vided that  every  dissenting  minister  should,  before  he  exercised 
his  function,  profess  under  his  hand  his  belief  in  the  Articles  of 
the  Church  of  England,  with  a  few  exceptions.  The  proposi- 
tions to  which  he  was  not  required  to  assent  were  these ;  that 
the  Church  has  power  to  regulate  ceremonies ;  that  the  doc- 
trines set  forth  in  the  Book  of  Homilies  are  sound ;  and  that 
there  is  nothing  superstitious  or  idolatrous  in  the  ordination  ser- 
vice. If  he  declared  himself  a  Baptist,  he  was  also  excused 
from  affirming  that  the  baptism  of  infants  is  a  laudable  practice. 
But,  unless  his  conscience  suffered  him  to  subscribe  thirty-four 
of  the  thirty-nine  Articles,  and  the-  greater  part  of  two  other 
Articles,  he  could  not  preach  without  incurring  all  the  punish- 
ments which  the  Cavaliers,  in  the  day  of  their  power  and  their 
vengeance,  had  devised  for  the  tormenting  and  ruining  of  schis- 
matical  teachers. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  85 

The  situation  of  the  Quaker  differed  from  that  of  other  dis- 
senters, and  differed  for  the  worse.  The  Presbyterian,  the  In- 
dependent, and  the  Baptist  had  no  scruple  about  the  Oath  of 
Supremacy.  But  the  Quaker  refused  to  take  it,  not  because  he 
objected  to  the  proposition  that  foreign  sovereigns  and  prelates 
have  no  jurisdiction  in  England,  but  because  his  conscience 
would  not  suffer  him  to  swear  to  any  proposition  whatever. 
He  was  therefore  exposed  to  the  severity  of  part  of  that  penal 
code  which,  long  before  Quakerism  existed,  had  been  enacted 
against  Roman  Catholics  by  the  Parliaments  of  Elizabeth.  Soon 
after  the  Restoration,  a  severe  law,  distinct  from  the  general 
law  which  applied  to  all  conventicles,  had  been  passed  against 
meetings  of  Quakers.  The  Toleration  Act  permitted  the  mem- 
bers of  this  harmless  sect  to  hold  their  assemblies  in  peace,  on 
condition  of  signing  three  documents,  a  declaration  against 
Transubstautiation,  a  promise  of  fidelity  to  the  government,  and 
a  confession  of  Christian  belief.  The  objections  which  the 
Quaker  had  to  the  Athanasian  phraseology  had  brought  on  him 
the  imputation  of  Socinianism  :  and  the  strong  language  in 
which  he  sometimes  asserted  that  he  derived  his  knowledge  of 

O 

spiritual  things  directly  from  above  had  raised  a  suspicion  that 
he  thought  lightly  of  the  authority  of  Scripture.  He  was 
therefore  required  to  profess  his  faith  in  the  divinity  of  the  Son 
and  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  in  the  inspiration  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments. 

Such  were  the  terms  on  which  the  Protestant  dissenters  of 
England  were,  for  the  first  time,  permitted  by  law  to  worship 
God  according  to  their  own  conscience.  They  were  very  prop- 
erly forbidden  to  assemble  with  barred  doors,  but  were  pro- 
tected against  hostile  intrusion  by  a  clause  which  made  it  penal 
to  enter  a  meeting  house  for  the  purpose  of  molesting  the  con- 
gregation. 

As  if  the  numerous  limitations  and  precautions  which  have 
been  mentioned  were  insufficient,  it  was  emphatically  declared 
that  the  legislature  did  not  intend  to  grant  the  smallest  indul- 
gence to  any  Papist,  or  to  any  person  who  denied  the  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity  as  that  doctrine  is  set  forth  in  the  formularies  of 
the  Church  of  England. 


86  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Of  all  the  Acts  that  have  ever  been  passed  by  Parliament, 
the  Toleration  Act  is  perhaps  that  which  most  strikingly  illus- 
trates the  peculiar  vices  and  the  peculiar  excellences  of  English 
legislation.  The  science  of  Politics  bears  in  one  respect  a  close 
analogy  to  the  science  of  Mechanics.  The  mathematician  can 
easily  demonstrate  that  a  certain  power,  applied  by  means  of  a 
certain  lever  or  of  a  certain  system  of  pulleys,  will  suffice  to 
raise  a  certain  weight.  But  his  demonstration  proceeds  on  the 
supposition  that  the  machinery  is  such  as  no  load  will  bend  or 
break.  If  the  engineer,  who  has  to  lift  a  great  mass  of  real 
granite  by  the  instrumentality  of  real  timber  and  real  hemp, 
should  absolutely  rely  on  the  propositions  which  he  finds  in 
treatises  on  Dynamics,  and  should  make  no  allowance  for  the 
imperfection  of  his  materials,  his  whole  apparatus  of  beams, 
wheels,  and  ropes  would  soon  come  down  in  ruin,  and,  with  all  his 
geometrical  skill,  he  would  be  found  a  far  inferior  builder  to 
those  painted  barbarians  who,  though  they  never  heard  of  the 
parallelogram  of  forces,  managed  to  pile  up  Stonehenge.  What 
the  engineer  is  to  the  mathematician,  the  active  statesman  is  to 
the  contemplative  statesman.  It  is  indeed  most  important  that 
legislators  and  administrators  should  be  versed  in  the  philosophy 
of  government,  as  it  is  most  important  that  the  architect,  who 
has  to  fix  an  obelisk  on  its  pedestal,  or  to  hang  a  tubular  bridge 
over  an  estuary,  should  be  versed  in  the  philosophy  of  equili- 
brium and  motion.  But,  as  he  who  has  actually  to  build  must 
bear  in  mind  many  things  never  noticed  by  D'Alembert  and 
Euler,  so  must  he  who  has  actually  to  govern  be  perpetually 
guided  by  considerations  to  which  no  allusion  can  be  found  in 
the  writings  of  Adam  Smith  or  Jeremy  Bentham.  The  perfect 
lawgiver  is  a  just  temper  between  the  mere  man  of  theory,  who 
can  see  nothing  but  general  principles,  and  the  mere  man  of  busi- 
ness, who  can  see  nothing  but  particular  circumstances.  Of 
lawgivers  in  whom  the  speculative  element  has  prevailed  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  practical,  the  world  has  during  the  last  eighty 
years  been  singularly  fruitful.  To  their  wisdom  Europe  and 
America  have  owed  scores  of  abortive  constitutions,  scores  of 
constitutions  which  have  lived  just  long  enough  to  make  a  miser- 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  87 

able  noise,  and  have  then  gone  off  in  convulsions.  But  in  English 
legislation  the  practical  element  has  always  predominated,  and 
not  seldom  unduly  predominated,  over  the  speculative.  To 
think  nothing  of  symmetry  and  much  of  convenience  ;  never  to 
remove  an  anomaly  merely  because  it  is  an  anpmaly  ;  never  to 
innovate  except  when  some  grievance  is  felt ;  never  to  innovate 
except  so  far  as  to  get  rid  of  the  grievance ;  never  to  lay  down 
any  proposition  of  wider  extent  than  the  particular  case  for 
which  it  is  necessary  to  provide  ;  these  are  the  rules  which  have 
from  the  age  of  John  to  the  age  of  Victoria,  generally  guided  the 
deliberations  of  our  two  hundred  and  fifty  Parliaments.  Our 
national  distaste  for  whatever  is  abstract  in  political  science 
amounts  undoubtedly  to  a  fault.  Yet  it  is,  perhaps,  a  fault  on 
the  right  side.  That  we  have  been  far  too  slow  to  improve  our 
laws  must  be  admitted.  But,  though  in  other  countries  there 
may  have  occasionally  been  more  rapid  progress,  it  would  not 
be  easy  to  name  any  other  country  in  which  there  has  been  so 
little  retrogression. 

The  Toleration  Act  approaches  very  near  to  tho  idea  of  a 
great  English  law.  To  a  Jurist,  versed  in  the  theory  of  legisla- 
tion, but  not  intimately  acquainted  with  the  temper  of  the  sects 
and  parties  into  which  the  nation  was  divided  at  the  time  of  the 
Revolution,  that  Act  would  seem  to  be  a  mere  chaos  of  absurd- 
ities and  contradictions.  It  will  not  bear  to  be  tried  by  sound 
general  principles.  Nay,  it  will  not  bear  to  be  tried  by  any 
principle,  sound  or  unsound.  The  sound  principle  undoubtedly 
is,  that  mere  theological  error  ought  not  to  be  punished  by  the 
civil  magistrate.  This  principle  the  Toleration  Act  not  only  does 
not  recognise,  but  positively  disclaims.  Not  a  sjngle  one  of  the 
cruel  laws  enacted  against  nonconformists  by  the  Tudors  or 
the  Stuarts  is  repealed.  Persecution  continues  to  be  the  gen- 
eral rule.  Toleration  is  the  exception.  Nor  is  this  all.  The 
freedom  which  is  given  to  conscience  is  given  in  the  most 
capricious  manner.  A  Quaker,  by  making  a  declaration  of 
faith  in  general  terms,  obtains  the  full  benefit  of  the  Act  without 
signing  one  of  the  thirty-nine  Articles.  An  Independent  minis- 
ter, who  is  perfectly  willing  to  make  the  declaration  required 


88  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

from  the  Quaker,  but  who  has  doubts  about  six  or  seven  of  the 
Articles,  remains  still  subject  to  the  penal  laws.  Howe  is 
liable  to  punishment  if  he  preaches  before  he  has  solemnly  de- 
clared his  assent  to  the  Anglican  doctrine  touching  the  Euchar- 
ist. Penn,  who  altogether  rejects  the  Eucharist,  is  at  perfect 
liberty  to  preach  without  making  any  declaration  whatever  on 
the  subject. 

These  are  some  of  the  obvious  faults  which  must  strike 
every  person  who  examines  the  Toleration  Act  by  that  standard 
of  just  reason  which  is  the  same  in  all  countries  and  in  all  ages. 
But  these  very  faults  may  perhaps  appear  to  be  merits,  when 
we  take  into  consideration  the  passions  and  prejudices  of  those 
for  whom  the  Toleration  Act  was  framed.  This  law,  abound- 
ing with  contradictions  which  every  smatterer  in  political  phi- 
losophy can  detect,  did  what  a  law  framed  by  the  utmost  skill  of 
the  greatest  masters  of  political  philosophy  might  have  failed  to 
do.  That  the  provisions  which  have  been  recapitulated  are 
cumbrous,  puerile,  inconsistent  with  each  other,  inconsistent 
with  the  true  theory  of  relig'.ous  liberty,  must  be  acknowledged. 
All  that  can  be  said  in  their  defence  is  this ;  that  they  removed 
a  vast  mass  of  evil  without  shocking  a  vast  mass  of  prejudice ; 
that  they  pflt  an  end,  at  once  and  for  ever,  without  one  division 
in  either  House  of  Parliament,  without  one  riot  in  the  streets, 
with  scarcely  one  audible  murmur  even  from  the  classes  most 
deeply  tainted  with  bigotry,  to  a  persecution  which  raged  du- 
ring four  generations,  which  had  broken  innumerable  hearts, 
which  had  made  innumerable  firesides  desolate,  which  had  filled 
the  prisons  with  men  of  whom  the  world  was  not  worthy,  which 
had  driven  thousands  of  those  honest,  diligent,  and  godfearing 
yeomen  and  artisans,  who  are  the  true  strength  of  a  nation,  to  seek 
a  refuge  beyond  the  ocean  among  the  wigwams  of  red  Indians  and 
the  lairs  of  panthers.  Such  a  defence,  however  weak  it  may 
appear  to  some  shallow  speculators,  will  probably  be  thought 
complete  by  statesmen. 

The  English,  in  1689,  were  by  no  means  disposed  to  admit 
the  doctrine  that  religious  error  ought  to  be  left  unpunished. 
That  doctrine  was  just  then  more  unpopular  than  it  had  ever 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  89 

been.  For  it  had,  only  a  few  months  before,  been  hypocriti- 
cally put  forward  as  a  pretext  for  persecuting  the  Established 
Church,  for  trampling  on  the  fundamental  laws  of  the  realm, 
for  confiscating  freeholds,  for  treating  as  a  crime  the  modest  ex- 
ercise of  the  right  of  petition.  If  a  bill  had  then  been  drawn 
up  granting  entire  freedom  of  conscience  to  all  Protestants,  it 
may  be  confidently  affirmed  that  Nottingham  would  never  have 
introduced  such  a  bill ;  that  all  the  bishops,  Burnet  included, 
would  have  voted  against  it ;  that  it  would  have  been  denounced 
Sunday  after  Sunday,  from  ten  thousand  pulpits,  as  an  insult  to* 
God  and  to  all  Christian  men,  and  as  a  license  to  the  worst 
heretics  and  blasphemers  ;  that  it  would  have  been  condemned 
almost  as  vehemently  by  Bates  and  Baxter  as  by  Ken  and  Sher- 
lock ;  that  it  would  have  been  burned  by  the  mob  in  half  the  mar- 
ket places  of  England  ;  that  it  would  never  have  become  the  law 
of  the  land,  and  that  it  would  have  made  the  very  name  of  toler- 
ation odious  during  many  years  to  the  great  majority  of  the  peo- 
ple. And  yet,  if  such  a  bill  had  been  passed,  what  would  it  have 
effected  beyond  what  was  effected  by  the  Toleration  Act  ? 

It  is  true  that  the  Toleration  Act  recognised  persecution  as 
the  rule,  and  granted  liberty  of  conscience  only  as  the  excep- 
tion. But  it  is  equally  true  that  the  rule  remained  in  force 
only  against  a  few  hundreds  of  Protestant  dissenters,  and  that 
the  benefit  of  the  exceptions  extended  to  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands. 

It  is  true  that  it  was  in  theory  absurd  to  make  Howe  sign 
thirty-four  or  thirty-five  of  the  Anglican  Articles  before  he 
could  preach,  and  to  let  Pefin  preach  without  signing  one  of 
those  Articles.  But  it  is  equally  true  that  under  this  arrange- 
ment both  Howe  and  Penn  got  as  entire  liberty  to  preach  as 
they  could  have  had  under  the  most  philosophical  code  that 
Deccaria  or  Jefferson  could  have  framed. 

The  progress  of  the  bill  was  easy.  Only  one  amendment  of 
grave  importance  was  proposed.  Some  zealous  churchmen  in 
the  Commons  suggested  that  it  might  be  desirable  to  grant  the 
toleration  o.ily  for  a  term  of  seven  years,  and  thus  to  bind  over 
the  nonconformists  to  good  behaviour.  But  this  suggestion 


90  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

was  so  unfavourably  received  that  those  who  made  it  did  not 
venture  to  divide  the  House.* 

The  King  gave  his  consent  with  hearty  satisfaction  :  the 
bill  became  law;  and  the  Puritan  divines  thronged  to  the 
Quarter  Sessions  of  every  county  to  swear  and  sign.  Many  of 
them  probably  professed  their  assent  to  the  Articles  with  some 
tacit  reservations.  But  the  tender  conscience  of  Baxter  would 
not  suffer  him  to  qualify,  till  he  had  put  on  record  an  explana- 
tion of  the  sense  in  which  he  understood  every  proposition 
which  seemed  to  him  to  admit  of  misconstruction.  The  instru- 
ment delivered  by  him  to  the  Court  before  which  he  took  the 
oaths  is  still  extant,  and  contains  two  passages  of  peculiar  in- 
terest. He  declared  that  his  approbation  of  the  Athanasian 
Creed  was  confined  to  that  part  which  was  properly  a  Creed, 
and  that  he  did  not  mean  to  express  any  assent  to  the  damnatory 
clauses.  He  also  declared  that  he  did  not,  by  signing  the 
article  which  anathematises  all  who  maintain  that  there  is  any 
other  salva>ion  than  through  Christ,  mean  to  condemn  those 
who  entertain  a  hope  that  sincere  and  virtuous  unbelievers  may 
be  admitted  to  partake  in  the  benefits  of  Redemption.  Many 
of  the  dissenting  clergy  of  London  expressed  their  concurrence 
in  these  charitable  sentiments,  f 

The  history  of  the  Comprehension  Bill  presents  a  remark- 
able contrast  to  the  history  of  the  Toleration  Bill.  The  two 
bills  had  a  common  origin,  and,  to  a  great  extent,  a  common 
object.  They  were  framed  at  the  same  time,  and  laid  aside  at 
the  same  time  :  they  sank  together  into  oblivion,  and  they  were, 
after  the  lapse  of  several  years,  again  brought  together  before 
the  world.  Both  were  laid  by  the  same  peer  on  the  table  of 
the  Upper  House  ;  and  both  were  referred  to  the  same  select 
committee.  But  it  soon  began  to  appear  that  they  would  have 
widely  different  fates.  The  Comprehension  Bill  was  indeed  a 
neater  specimen  of  legislative  workmanship  than  the  Tolera- 
tion Bill,  but  was  not,  like  the  Toleration  Bill,  adapted  to  the 

*  Common's  Journals,  May  17,  1689. 

t  Sense  of  the  subscribed  articles  by  the  Ministers  of  London,  1690  ;  Calamy's 
Historical  Additions  to  Baxter's  Life. 


•WILLIAM    AND    MAKT.  91 

wants,  the  feelings,  and  the  prejudices  of  the  existing  genera- 
tion. Accordingly  while  the  Toleration  Bill  found* support  in 
all  quarters,  the  Comprehension  Bill  was  attacked  from  all 
quarters,  and  was  at  last  coldly  and  languidly  defended  even 
by  those  who  had  introduced  it.  About  the  same  time  at  which 
the  Toleration  Bill  became  law  with  the  general  concurrence  of 
public  men,  the  Comprehension  Bill  was,  with  a  concurrence 
not  less  general,  suffered  to  drop.  The  Toleration  Bill  still 
ranks  among  those  great  statutes  which  are  epochs  in  our  con- 
stitutional history.  The  Comprehension  Bill  is  forgotten.  No 
collector  of  antiquities  has  thought  it  worth  preserving.  A 
single  copy,  the  same  which  Nottingham  presented  to  the 
Peers,  is  still  among  our  parliamentary  records,  but  has  been 
seen  by  only  two  or  three  persons  now  living.  It  is  a  fortunate 
circumstance  that,  in  this  copy,  almost  the  whole  history  of  the 
Bill  can  be  read.  In  spite  of  cancellations  and  interlineations, 
the  original  words  can  easily  be  distinguished  from  those  which 
were  inserted  in  the  committee  or  on  the  report.* 

The  first  clause,  as  it  stood  when  the  bill  was  introduced, 
dispensed  all  the  ministers  of  the  Established  Church  from  the 
necessity  of  subscribing  the  Thirty-nine  Articles.  For  the 
Articles  was  substituted  a  Declaration  which  ran  thus ;  "  I  do 
approve  of  the  doctrine  and  worship  and  government  of  the 
Church  of  England  by  law  established,  as  containing  all  things 
necessary  to  salvation ;  and  I  promise,  in  the  exercise  of  my 
ministry,  to  preach  and  practise  according  thereunto."  An- 
other clause  granted  similar  indulgence  to  the  members  of  the 
two  universities. 

Then  it  was  provided  that  any  minister  who  had  been 
ordained  after  the  Presbyterian  fashion  might,  without  reordina- 
tion,  acquire  all  tbe  privileges  of  a  priest  of  the  Established 
Church.  He  must,  however,  be  admitted  to  his  new  functions 
by  the  imposition  of  the  hands  of  a  bishop,  who  was  to  pronounce 

*  The  bill  will  be  found  among  the  Archives  of  the  House  of  Lords.  It  is 
strange  that  this  vast  collection  of  important  documents  should  have  been  alto- 
gether neglected,  even  by  our  most  exact  and  diligent  historians.  It  was  opened 
to  me  by  one  of  the  most  valued  of  my  friends,  Sir  John  Lefevre  ;  and  my  re- 
searches were  greatly  assisted  by  the  kindness  of  Mr.  Thorns. 


92  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

the  following  form  of  words  ;  "  Take  thou  authority  to  preach 
the  word  of  God,  and  administer  the  sacraments,  and  to  perform 
all  other  ministerial  offices  in  the  Church  of  England."  The 
person  thus  admitted  was  to  be  capable  of  holding  any  rectory 
or  vicarage  in  the  kingdom. 

Then  followed  clauses  providing  that  a  clergyman  might, 
except  in  a  few  churches  of  peculiar  dignity,  wear  the  surplice 
or  not  as  he  thought  fit,  that  the  sign  of  the  cross  might  be 
omitted  in  baptism,  that  children  might  be  christened,  if  such 
were  the  wish  of  their  parents,  without  godfathers  or  godmothers, 
and  that  persons  who  had  a  scruple  about  receiving  the  Eucharist 
kneeling  might  receive  it  sitting. 

The  concluding  clause  was  drawn  in  the  form  of  a  petition. 
It  was  proposed  that  the  two  Houses  should  request  the  King 
and  Queen  to  issue  a  commission  empowering  thirty  divines  of 
the  Established  Church  to'  revise  the  liturgy,  the  canons,  and 
the  constitution  of  the  ecclesiastical  courts,  and  to  recommend 
such  alterations  as  might  on  enquiry  appear  to  be  desirable. 

The  bill  went  smoothly  through  the  first  stages.  Compton, 
who,  since  Sancroft  had  shut  himself  up  at  Lambeth,  was  vir- 
tually Primate,  supported  Nottingham  with  ardour.*  In  the 
committee,  however,  it  appeared  that  there  was  a  strong  body  of 
churchmen,  who  were  as  obstinately  determined  not  to  give  up 
a  single  word  or  form  as  if  they  had  thought  that  prayers  were 
no  prayers  if  read  without  the  surplice,  that  a  babe  could  be  no 
Christian  if  not  marked  with  the  cross,  that  bread  and  wine 
could  be  no  memorials  of  redemption  or  vehicles  of  grace  if  not 
received  on  bended  knee.  Why,  these  persons  asked,  was  the 
docile  and  affectionate  son  of  the  Church  to  be  disgusted  by 
seeing  the  irreverent  practices  of  a  conventicle  introduced  into 
her  majestic  choirs  ?  Why  should  his  feelings,  his  prejudices, 

*  Among  the  Tanner  MSS.  in  the  feodleian  Library  is  a  very  curious  letter 
from  Compton  to  Sancroft,  about  the  Toleration  Bill  and  the  Comprehension 
Bill.  "These,"  says  Compton,  "  are  two  great  works  in  which  the  being  of  our 
Church  is  concerned ;  and  I  hope  you  will  send  to  the  House  for  copies.  For 
though  we  are  under  a  conquest,  God  has  given  us  favour  in  the  eyes  of  our 
rulers  ;  and  we  may  keep  our  Church  if  we  will."  ttaucryt't  eeenis  to  have  re* 
turned  no  answer. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  93 

if  prejudices  they  were,  be  less  considered  than  the  whims  of 
schismatics  ?  If,  as  Burnet  and  men  like  Burnet  were  never 
weary  of  repeating,  indulgence  was  due  to  a  weak  brother,  was 
it  less  due  to  the  brother  whose  weakness  consisted  in  the  excess 
of  his  love  for  an  ancient,  a  decent,  a  beautiful  ritual,  associated 
in  his  imagination  from  childhood  with  all  that  is  most  sublime 

O 

and  endearing,  than  to  him  whose  morose  and  litigious  mind  was 
always  devising  frivolous  objections  to  innocent  and  salutary 
usages  ?  But  in  truth,  the  scrupulosity  of  the  Puritan  was  not 
that  sort  of  scrupulosity  which  the  Apostle  had  commanded 
believers  to  respect.  It  sprang,  not  from  morbid  tenderness  of 
conscience,  but  from  ceusoriousness  and  spiritual  pride  ;  and 
none  who  had  studied  the  New  Testament  could  have  failed  to 
observe  that,  while  we  are  charged  carefully  to  avoid  whatever 
may  give  scandal  to  the  feeble,  we  are  taught  by  divine  precept 
and  example  to  make  no  concession  to  the  supercilious  and 
uncharitable  Pharisee.  Was  everything  which  was  not  of  the 
essence  of  religion  to  be  given  up  as  soon  as  it  became  unpleas- 
ing  to  a  knot  of  zealots  whose  heads  had  been  turned  by  con- 
ceit and  the  love  of  novelty  ?  Painted  glass,  music,  holidays, 
fast  ("ays,  were  not  of  the  essence  of  religion.  Were  the  windows 
of  King's  College  chapel  to  be  broken  at  the  demand  of  one  set 
of  fanatics  ?  Was  the  organ  of  Exeter  to  be  silenced  to  please 
another  ?  Were  all  the  village  bells  to  be  mute  because  Trib- 
ulation Wholesome  and  Deacon  Ananias  thought  them  profane  ? 
Was  Christmas  no  longer  to  be  a  day  of  rejoicing?  Was  Pas- 
sion week  no  longer  to  be  a  season  of  humiliation  ?  These 
changes,  it  is  true,  were  not  yet  proposed.  But  if. — so  the  High 
Churchmen  reasonci, — we  once  admit  that  what  is  harmless 
and  edifying  is  to  be  given  up  because  it  offends  some  narrow 
understandings  and  some  gloomy  tempers,  where  are  we  to 
stop  ?  And  is  it  not  probable  that,  by  thus  attempting  to  heal 
one  schism,  we  may  cause  another  ?  All  those  things  which  the 
Puritans  regard  as  the  blemishes  of  the  Church  are  by  a  large 
part  of  the  population  reckoned  among  her  attractions.  May 
she  not,  in  ceasing  to  give  scandal  to  a  few  sour  precisians, 
cease  also  to  influence  the  hearts  of  many  who  now  delight  in 


94  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

her  ordinances  ?  Is  it  not  to  be  apprehended  that,  for  every 
proselyte  whom  she  allures  from  the  meeting  house,  ten  of  her 
old  disciples  may  turn  away  from  her  maimed  rites  and  disman- 
tled temples,  and  that  these  new  separatists  may  either  form 
themselves  into  a  sect  far  more  formidable  than  the  sect  which 
we  are  now  seeking  to  conciliate,  or  may,  in  the  violence  of  their 
disgust  at  a  cold  and  ignoble  worship,  be  tempted  to  join  in  the 
solemn  and  gorgeous  idolatry  of  Home  ? 

It  is  remarkable  that  those  who  held  this  language  were  by 
no  means  disposed  to  contend  for  the  doctrinal  Articles  of  the 
Church,  The  truth  is  that,  from  the  time  of  James  the  First, 
that  great  party  which  has  been  peculiarly  zealous  for  the  An- 
glican polity  and  the  Anglican  ritual  has  always  leaned  strongly 
towards  Arminianism,  and  has  therefore  never  been  much  at- 
tached to  a  confession  of  faith  framed  by  reformers  who,  on 
questions  of  metaphysical  divinity,  generally  agreed  with  Cal- 
vin. One  of  the  characteristic  marks  of  that  party  is  the  dis- 
position which  it  has  always  shown  to  appeal,  on  points  of  dog- 
matic theology,  rather  to  the  Liturgy,  which  was  derived  from 
Rome,  than  to  the  Articles  and  Homilies,  which  were  derived 
from  Geneva.  Tl>e  Calvinistic  members  of  the  Church,  on  the 
other  hand,  have  always  maintained  that  her  deliberate  judg- 
ment on  such  points  is  much  more  likely  to  be  found  in  an 
Article  or  a  Homily  than  in  an  ejaculation  of  penitence  or  a 
hymn  of  thanksgiving.  It  does  not  appear  that,  in  the  debates 
on  the  Comprehension  Bill,  a  single  High  Churchman  raised 
his  voice  against  the  clause  which  relieved  the  clergy  from  the 
necessity  of  subscribing  the  Articles,  and  of  declaring  the  doc- 
trine contained  in  the  liomilies  to  be  sound.  Nay,  the  Decla- 
ration, which  in  the  original  draught,  was  substituted  for  the 
Articles,  was  much  softened  down  on  the  report.  As  the  clause 
finally  stood,  the  ministers  of  the  Church  were  required,  not  to 
profess  that  they  approved  of  her  doctrine,  but  merely  to 
acknowledge,  what  probably  few  Baptists,  Quakers,  or  Uni- 
tarians would  deny,  that  her  doctrine  contained  all  things 
necessary  to  salvation.  Had  the  bill  become  law,  the  only 
people  in  the  kingdom  who  would  have  been  under  the  neces- 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  95 

sity  of  signing  the  Articles  would  have  been  the  dissenting 
preachers.* 

The  easy  manner  in  which  the  zealous  friends  of  the  Church 
gave  up  her  confession  of  faith  presents  a  striking  contrast  to 
the  spirit  with  which  they  struggled  for  her  polity  and  her 
ritual.  The  clause  which  admitted  Presbyterian  ministers  to 
hold  benefices  without  episcopal  ordination  was  rejected.  The 
clause  which  permitted  scrupulous  persons  to  communicate 
sitting  very  narrowly  escaped  the  same  fate.  In  the  Commit- 
tee it  was  struck  out,  and,  on  the  report,  was  with  great  dif- 
ficulty restored.  The  majority  of  peers  in  the  House  was 
against  the  proposed  indulgence,  and  the  scale  was  but  just 
turned  by  the  proxies. 

But  by  this  time  it  began  to  appear  that  the  bill  which  the 
High  Churchmen  were  so  keenly  assailing  was  menaced  by 
dangers  from  a  very  different  quarter.  The  same  considerations 
which  had  induced  Nottingham  to  support  a  comprehension  made 
comprehension  an  object  of  dread  and  aversion  to  a  large  body 
of  dissenters.  The  truth  is  that  the  time  for  such  a  scheme  had 
gone  by.  If,  a  hundred  years  earlier,  when  the  division  in  the 
Protestant  body  was  recent,  Elizabeth  had  been  so  wise  as  to 
abstain  from  requiring  the  observance  of  a  few  forms  which  a 
large  part  of  her  subjects  considered  as  Popish,  she  might  per- 
haps have  averted  those  fearful  calamities  which,  forty  years 
after  her  death,  afflicted  the  Church.  But  the  general  tendency 
of  schism  is  to  wklen.  Had  Leo  the  Tenth, -when  the  exactions 
and  impostures  of  the  Pardoners  first  roused  the  indignation  of 
Saxony,  corrected  those  evil  practices  with  a  vigorous  hand,  it  is 
not  improbable  that  Luther  would  have  died  in  the  bosom  of  the 
Church  of  Rome.  But  the  opportunity  was  suffered  to  escape  ; 
and,  when,  a  few  years  later,  the  Vatican  would  gladly  have 
purchased  peace  by  yielding  the  original  subject  of  quarrel,  the 
original  subject  of  quarrel  was  almost  forgotten.  The  enquiring 
spirit  which  had  been  roused  by  a  single  abuse  had  discovered  or 

»  The  distaste  of  the  High  Churchmen  for  the  Articles  is  tlie  subject  of  a 
curious  pamphlet  published  in  1689,  and  entitled  a  Dialogue  between  Timothy 
and  Titua. 


96  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

imagined  a  thousand  :  controversies  engendered  controversies  : 
every  attempt  that  was  made  to  accommodate  one  dispute  ended 
by  producing  another  ;  and  at  length  the  General  Council,  which 
during  the  earlier  stages  of  the  distemper,  had  been  supposed  to 
be  an  infallible  remedy,  made  the  case  utterly  hopeless.  In 
this  respect,  as  in  many  others,  the  history  of  Puritanism  in 
England  bears  a  close  analogy  to  the  history  of  Protestantism  in 
Europe.  The  Parliament  of  1689  could  no  more  put  an  end  to 
nonconformity  by  tolerating  a  garb  or  a  posture  than  the  Doctors 
of  Trent  could  have  reconciled  the  Teutonic  nations  to  the  Pa- 
pacy by  regulating  the  sale  of  indulgences.  In  the  sixteenth 
century  Quakerism  was  unknown  ;  and  there  was  not  in  the 
whole  realm  a  single  congregation  of  Independents  or  Baptists- 
At  the  time  of  the  Revolution,  the  Independents,  Baptists,  and 
Quakers  were  probably  a  majority  of  the  dissenting  body;  and 
these  sects  could  not  be  gained  over  on  any  terms  which  the 
lowest  of  Low  Churchmen  would  have  been  willing  to  offer.- 
The  Independent  held  that  a  national  Church,  governed  by  any 
central  authority  whatever,  Pope,  Patriarch,  King,  Bishop  or 
Synod,  was  an  unscriptural  institution,  and  that  every  congrega- 
tion of  believers  was,  under  Christ,  a  sovereign  society.  The 
Baptist  was  even  more  irreclaimable  than  the  Independent,  and 
the  Quaker  even  more  irreclaimable  than  the  Baptist.  Conces- 
sions, therefore,  which  would  once  have  extinguished  noncon- 
formity, would  not  now  satisfy  even  one  half  of  the  noncon- 
formists ;  and  it  was'  the  obvious  interest  of  every  nonconformist 
whom  no  concession  would  satisfy  that  none  of  his  brethren 
should  be  satisfied.  The  more  liberal  the  terms  of  comprehen- 
sion, the  greater  was  the  alarm  of  every  separatist  who  knew 
that  he  could,  in  no  case,  be  comprehended.  There  was  but 
slender  hope  that  the  dissenters,  unbroken  and  acting  as  one 
man. would  be  able  to  obtain  from  the  legislature  full  admission 
to  civil  privileges  ;  and  all  hope  of  obtaining  such  admission  must 
be  relinquished  if  Nottingham  should,  by  the  help  of  some  well- 
meaning  but  shortsighted  friends  of  religious  liberty,  be  enabled 
to  accomplish  his  design.  If  his  bill  passed,  there  would  doubt- 
less be  a  considerable  defection  from  the  dissenting  body  ;  and 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  97 

every  defection  must  be  severely  felt  by  a  class  already  outnum- 
bered, depressed,  and  struggling  against  powerful  enemies.  Every 
proselyte  too  must  be  reckoned  twice  over,  as  a  loss  to  the  party 
which  was  even  now  too  weak,  and  as  a  gain  to  the  party 
which  was  even  now  too  strong.  The  Church  was  but  too  well 
able  to  hold  her  own  against  all  the  sects  in  the  kingdom ;  and, 
if  those  sects  were  to  be  thinned  by  a  large  desertion,  and  the 
Church  strengthened  by  a  large  reinforcement,  it  was  plain  that 
all  chance  of  obtaining  any  relaxation  of  the  Test  Act  would  be 
at  an  end ;  and  it  was  but  too  probable  that  the  Toleration  Act 
might  not  long  remain  unrepealed. 

Even  those  Presbyterian  ministers  whose  scruples  the  Com- 
prehension Bill  was  especially  intended  to  remove  were  by  no 
means  unanimous  in  wishing  it  to  pass.  The  ablest  and  most 
eloquent  preachers  among  them  had,  since  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dulgence had  appeared,  been  very  agreeably  settled  in  the  capital 
and  in  other  large  towns,  and  were  now  about  to  enjoy,  under  the 
sure  guarantee  of  an  Act  of  Parliament,  that  toleration  which, 
under  the  Declaration  of  Indulgence,  had  been  illicit  and  pre 
carious.  The  situation  of  these  men  was  such  as  the  great  ma- 
jority of  the  divines  of  the  Established  Church  might  well  envy. 
Few  indeed  of  the  parochial  clergy  were  so  abundantly  supplied 
with  comforts  as  the  favourite  orator  of  a  great  assembly  of  non- 
conformists in  the  City.  The  voluntary  contributions  of  his 
wealthy  hearers,  Aldermen  and  Deputies,  West  India  Merchants 
and  Turkey  merchants,  Wardens  of  the  Company  of  Fishmong- 
ers and  Wardens  of  the  Company  of  Goldsmiths,  enabled  him 
to  become  a  landowner  or  a  mortgagee.  The  best  broadcloth 
from  Blackwell  Hall,  and  the  best  poultry  from  Leadenhall 
Market,  were  frequently  left  at  his  door.  His  influence  over 
his  flock  was  immense.  Scarcely  any  member  of  a  congregation 
of  separatists  entered  into  a  partnership,  married  a  daughter,  put 
a  son  out  as  apprentice,  or  gave  his  vote  at  an  election,  without 
consulting  his  spiritual  guide.  On  all  political  and  literary  ques- 
tions the  minister  was  the  oracle  of  his  own  circle.  It  was  pop- 
ularly remarked,  during  many  years,  that  an  eminent  dissenting 
minister  had  only  to  determine  whether  he  would  make  his  son 
VOL.  III.— 7 


98  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

an  attorney  or  a  physician  ;  for  that  the  attorney  was  sure  to 
have  clients  and  the  physician  to  have  patients.  While  a  wait- 
ing woman  was  generally  considered  as  a  help  meet  for  a  chap- 
lain in  holy  orders  of  the  Established  Church,  the  widows  and 
daughters  of  opulent  citizens  were  supposed  to  belong  in  a  pecu- 
liar manner  to  nonconformist  pastors.  One  of  the  great  Pres- 
byterian Rabbles,  therefore,  might  well  doubt  whether,  in  a 
worldly  view,  he  should  be  a  gainer  by  a  comprehension.  He 
might  indeed  hold  a  rectory  or  a  vicarage,  when  he  could  get 
one.  But  in  the  meantime  he  would  be  destitute :  his  meeting 
house  would  be  closed  :  his  congregation  would  be  dispersed 
among  the  parish  churches  :  if  a  benefice  were  bestowed  on 
him,  it  would  probably  be  a  very  slender  compensation  for  the 
income  which  he  had  lost.  Nor  could  he  hope  to  have,  as  a 
minister  of  the  Anglican  Church,  the  authority  and  dignity  which 
he  had  hitherto  enjoyed.  He  would  always,  by  a  large  portion 
of  the  members  of  that  Church,  be  regarded  as  a  deserter.  He 
might,  therefore,  on  the  whole,  very  naturally  wish  to  be  left 
where  he  was.* 

There  was  consequently  a  division  in  the  Whig  party.  One 
section  of  that  party  was  for  relieving  the  dissenters  from  the 
Test  Act,  and  giving  up  the  Comprehension  Bill.  Another  sec- 
tion was  for  pushing  forward  the  Comprehension  Bill,  and  post- 
poning to  a  more  convenient  time  the  consideration  of  the  Test 

*  Tom  Brown  says,  in  his  scurrilous  way,  of  the  Presbyterian  divines  of  that 
time,  that  their  preaching  "  brings  in  money,  and  money  buys  land  ;  and  land  is 
an  amusement  they  all  desire,  in  spite  of  their  hypocritical  cant.  If  it  were  not 
for  the  quarterly  contributions,  there  would  be  no  longer  schism  or  separation." 
He  asks  how  it  can  be  imagined  that,  while  "  they  are  maintained  like  gentlemen 
by  the  breach,  they  will  ever  preach  up  healing  doctrines  ?  " — Brown's  Amuse- 
ments, Serous  and  Comical.  Some  curious  instances  of  the  influence  exercised 
by  the  chief  dissenting  ministers  may  be  found  in  Hawkins's  Life  of  Johnson. 
In  the  Journal  of  the  retired  citizen  (Spectator,  317.)  Addison  has  indulged  in 
some  exquisite  pleasantry  on  this  subject.  ^  The  Mr.  Nisby  whose  opinions  about 
the  peace,  the  Grand  Vizier,  and  laced  coffee,  are  quoted  with  so  much  respect, 
and  who  is  so  well  regaled  with  marrow  bones,  ox  cheek,  and  a  bottle  of  Brooks 
and  Hellier,  was  John  Nesbit,  a  highly  popular  preacher,  who,  about  the  time  of 
the  Revolution,  became  pastor  of  a  dissenting  congregation  in  Hare  Court, 
Aldersgate  Street.  In  Wilson's  History  and  Antiquities  of  Dissenting  Churches 
and  Meeting  Houses  in  London,  Westminister,  and  Southwark,  will  be  found 
several  instances  of  noncomformist.  preachers  who,  about  this  time,  made  hand- 
•oni':  fortunes,  generally,  it  should  seem,  by  marriage. 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  99 

Act.  The  effect  of  this  division  among  the  friends  of  religious 
liberty  was  that  the  High  Churchmen,  though  a  minority  in  the 
House  of  Commons  and  not  a  majority  in  the  House  of  Lords, 
were  able  to  oppose  with  success  both  the  reforms  which  they 
dreaded.  The  Comprehension  Bill  was  not  passed ;  and  the 
Test  Act  was  not  repealed. 

Just  at  the  moment  when  the  question  of  the  Test  and  the 
question  of  the  Comprehension  became  complicated  together  in 
a  manner  which  might  well  perplex  an  enlightened  and  honest 
politician,  both  questions  became  complicated  with  a  third  ques- 
tion of  great  importance. 

The  ancient  oaths  of  allegiance  and  supremacy  contained 
some  expressions  which  had  always  been  disliked  by  the  Whigs, 
and  other  expressions  which  Tories,  honestly  attached  to  the 
new  settlement,  thought  inapplicable  to  princes  who  had  not  the 
hereditary  right.  The  convention  had  therefore,  while  the 
throne  was  still  vacant,  framed  those  oaths  of  allegiance  and 
supremacy  by  which  we  still  testify  our  loyalty  to  our  Sover- 
eign. By  the  Act  which  turned  the  Convention  into  a  Parlia- 
ment, the  members  of  both  Houses  were  required  to  take  the 
new  oaths.  As  to  other  persons  in  public  trust,  it  was  hard  to 
say  how  the  law  stood.  One  form  of  words  was  enjoined  by 
statutes,  regularly  passed,  and  not  yet  regularly  abrogated.  A 
different  form  was  enjoined  by  the  Declaration  of  Right,  an  in- 
strument which  was  indeed  revolutionary  and  irregular,  but 
which  might  well  be  thought  equal  in  authority  to  any  statute. 
The  practice  was  in  as  much  confusion  as  the  law.  It  was 
therefore  felt  to  be  necessary  that  the  legislature  should, 
without  delay,  pass  an  Act  abolishing  the  old  oaths,  and  deter- 
mining when  and  by  whom  the  new  oaths  should  be  taken. 

The  bill  which  settled  this  important  question  originated  in 
the  Upper  House.  As  to  most  of  the  provisions  there  was  little 
room  for  dispute.  It  was  unan'~  usly  agreed  that  no  person 
should,  at  any  future  time,  be  admitted  to  any  office,  civil,  mili- 
tary, ecclesiastical,  or  academical,  without  taking  the  oaths  to 
William  and  Mary.  It  was  also  unanimously  agreed  that  every 
person  who  already  held  any  civil  or  military  office  should  be 


100  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

ejected  from  it,  unless  he  took  the  oaths  on  or  before  the  first 
of  August  1G89.  But  the  strongest  passions  of  both  parties 
were  excited  by  the  question  whether  persons  who  already 
possessed  ecclesiastical  or  academical  offices  should  be  required 
to  swear  fealty  to  the  King  and  Queen  on  pain  of  deprivation. 
None  could  say  what  might  be  the  effect  of  a  law  enjoining  all 
the  members  of  a  great,  a  powerful,  a  sacred  profession  to  make, 
under  the  most  solemn  sanction  of  religion,  a  declaration  which 
might  be  plausibly  represented  as  a  formal  recantation  of  all 
that  they  had  been  writing  and  preaching  during  many  years. 
The  Primate  and  some  of  the  most  eminent  Bishops  had  a!  ready 
absented  themselves  from  Parliament,  and  would  doubtless  re- 
linquish their  palaces  and  revenues,  rather  than  acknowledge 
the  new  Sovereigns.  The  example  of  these  great  prelates 
might  perhaps  be  followed  by  a  multitude  of  divines  of  humbler 
rank,  by  hundreds  of  canons,  prebendaries,  and  fellows  of  colleges, 
by  thousands  of  parish  priests.  To  such  an  event  no  Tory,  how- 
ever clear  his  own  conviction  that  he  might  lawfully  swear  alle- 
giance to  the  King  who  was  in  possession,  could  look  forward 
without  the  most  painful  emotions  pf  compassion  for  the  suf- 
ferers and  of  anxiety  for  the  Church. 

There  were  some  persons  who  went  so  far  as  to  deny  that 
the  Parliament  was  competent  to  pass  a  law  requiring  a  Bishop 
to  swear  on  pain  of  deprivation.  No  earthly  power,  they  said, 
could  break  the  tie  which  bound  the  successor  of  the  apostles 
to  his  diocese.  What  God  had  joined  no  man  could  sunder. 
Kings  and  senates  might  scrawl  words  on  parchment  or  impress 
figures  on  wax ;  but  those  words  and  figures  could  no  more 
change  the  course  of  the  spiritual  than  the  course  of  the  physical 
world.  As  the  Author  of  the  universe  had  appointed  a  certain 
order,  according  to  which  it  was  His  pleasure  to  send  winter 
and  summer,  seedtime  and  harvest,  so  He  had  appointed  a  cer- 
tain order,  according  to  which  He  communicated  His  grace  to 
His  Catholic  Church  ;  and  the  latter  order  was,  like  the  former, 
independent  of  the  powers  and  principalities  of  the  world.  A 
legislature  might  alter  the  names  of  the  months,  might  call 
June  December,  and  December  June  ;  but  in  spite  of  the  legis- 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  101 

lature,  the  snow  would  fall  when  the  sun  was  m  Capricorn, 
and  the  flowers  would  bloom  when  he  was  in  Cancer.  And  so 
the  legislature  might  enact  that  Ferguson  or  Muggleton  should 
live  in  the  palace  at  Lambeth,  should  sit  on  the  throne  of  Au- 
gustii),  should  be  called  Yo*ur  Grace,  and  should  walk  in  proces- 
sions before  the  Premier  Duke :  but,  in  spite  of  the  legislature, 
Saucroft  would,  while  Bancroft  lived,  be  the  only  true  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury  :  and  the  person  who  should  presume  to  usurp  the 
archiepiscopal  functions  would  be  a  schismatic.  This  doctrine 
was  proved  by  reasons  drawn  from  the  budding  of  Aaron's  rod, 
and  from  a  certain  plate  which  Saint  James  the  Less,  according  to 
a  legend  of  the  fourth  century,  used  to  wear  on  his  forehead.  A 
Greek  manuscript,  relating  to  the  deprivation  of  bishops,  was  dis- 
covered, about  this  time,  in  the  Bodleian  Library,  and  became  the 
subject  of  a  furious  controversy.  One  party  held  that  God  had 
wonderfully  brought  this  precious  volume  to  light,  for  the  guid- 
ance of  His  Church  at  a  most  critical  moment.  The  other 
party  wondered  that  any  importance  could  be  attached  to  the 
nonsense  of  a  nameless  scribbler  of  the  thirteenth  century. 
Much  was  written  about/ihe  deprivations  of  Chrysostom  and 
Phothis,  of  Nicolaus  Mysticus  and  Cosmas  Atticus.  But  the 
case  of  Abiathar,  whom  Solomon  put  out  of  the  sacerdotal  oiHce 
for  treason,  was  discussed  with  peculiar  eagerness.  No  small 
quantity  of  learning  and  ingenuity  was  expended  in  the  attempt 
to  prove  that  Abiathar,  though  he  wore  the  ephod  and  answered 
by  Urim,  was  not  really  High  Priest,  that  he  ministered  only 
when  his  superior  Zadoc  was  incapacitated  by  sickness  or  by 
some  ceremonial  pollution,  and  that  therefore  the  act  of  Solomon 
was  not  a  precedent  which  would  warrant  King  AVilliam  in  de- 
posing a  real  Bishop.* 

But  such  reasoning  as  this,  though  backed  by  copious 
citations  from  the  Misna  and  Maimonides,  was  not  generally 
satisfactory  even  to  zealous  churchmen.  For  it  admitted  of 

*  See,  among  many  other  tracts  Dodwell's  Cautionary  Discourses,  liis  Vindi- 
cation of  the  Deprived  Bishops,  his  Defence  of  the  Vindication,  and  his  Parse- 
nesis  ;  and  Bisby's  Unity  of  Priesthood,  printed  in  1692.  See  also  Hody's  tracts 
on  the  other  side,  the  Baroccian  MS.,  and  Solomon  and  Abiathar,  a  Dialogue 
between  Eucheres  and  Dyscheres. 


102  HISTORY   OP   ENGLAND. 

one  answer,  short,  but  perfectly  intelligible  to  a  plain  man"  who 
knew  nothing  about  Greek  fathers  or  Levitical  genealogies. 
There  might  be  some  doubt  whether  King  Solomon  had  ejected 
a  high  priest:  but  there  could  be  no  doubt  at  all  that  Queen 
Elizabeth  had  ejected  the  Bishops'of  more  than  half  the  sees 
in  England.  It  was  notorious  that  fourteen  prelates  had,  with- 
out any  proceeding  in  any  spiritual  court,  been  deprived  by  Act 
of  Parliament  for  refusing  to  acknowledge  her  supremacy.  Had 
that  deprivation  been  null  ?  Had  Bonner  continued  to  be,  to 
the  end  of  his  life,  the  only  true  Bishop  of  London  ?  Had  his 
successor  been  an  usurper  ?  Had  Parker  and  Jewel  been 
schismatics  ?  Had  the  Convocation  of  1562,  that  Convocation 
which  had  finally  settled  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  of  England, 
been  itself  out  of  the  pale  of  the  Church  of  Christ  ?  Nothing 
could  be  more  ludicrous  than  the  distress  of  those  controversial- 
ists who  had  to  invent  a  plea  for  Elizabeth  which  should  not 
be  also  a  plea  for  William.  Some  zealots,  indeed,  gave  up  the 
vain  attempt  to  distinguish  between  two  cases  which  every 
man  of  common  sense  perceived  to  be  undistinguishable,  and 
frankly  owned  that  the  deprivations  of  1559  could  not  be  justified. 
But  no  person,  it  was  said,  ought  to  be  troubled  in  mind  on  that 
account ;  for,  though  the  Church  of  England  might  once  have 
been  schismatical,  she  had  become  Catholic  when  the  last  of  the 
Bishops  deprived  by  Elizabeth  ceased  to  live.*  The  Tories, 
however,  were  not  generally  disposed  to  admit  that  the  religious 
society  to  which  they  were  fondly  attached  had  originated  in 
an  unlawful  breach  of  unity.  They  therefore  took  ground  lower 
and  more  tenable.  They  argued  the  question  as  a  question  of 
humanity  and  of  expediency.  They  spoke  much  of  the  debt  of 
gratitude  which  the  nation  owed  to  the  priesthood  ;  of  the  cour- 
age and  fidelity  with  which  the  order,  from  the  primate  down 
to  the  youngest  deacon,  had  recently  defended  the  civil  and 
ecclesiastical  constitution  of  the  realm;  of  the  memorable  Sun- 
day when,  in  all  the  hundred  churches  of  the  capital,  scarcely 

*  Burnet,  ii.  135.  Of  all  attempts  to  distinguish  between  the  deprivations  of 
1559  and  the  deprivations  of  lf!89.  the  most  absurd  was  made  by  Dodwell.  See  his 
doctrine  of  the  Church  of  England  concerning  the  Independency  of  the  Clergy 
on  the  lay  Power,  1697. 


•WILLIAM   AND    MART.  103 

one  slave  could  be  found  to  read  the  Declaration  of  Indulgence ; 
of  the  black  Friday  when,  amidst  the  blessings  and  the  loud 
weeping  of  a  mighty  population,  the  barge  of  the  seven  prelates 
passed  through  the  Watergate  of  the  Tower.  The  firmness  with 
which  the  clergy  had  lately,  in  defiance  of  menace  and  of  seduc- 
tion, done  what  they  conscientiously  believed  to  be  right,  had 
saved  the  liberty  and  religion  of  England.  Was  no  indulgence 
to  be  granted  to  them  if  they  now  refused  to  do  what  they  con- 
scientiously apprehended  to  be  wrong?  And  where,  it  was 
said,  is  the  danger  of  treating  them  with  tenderness  ?  Nobody 
is  so  absurd  as  to  propose  that  they  shall  be  permitted  to  plot 
against  the  Government,  or  to  stir  up  the  multitude  to  insurrec- 
tion. They  are  amenable  to  the  law,  like  other  men.  If  they 
are  guilty  of  treason,  let  them  be  hanged.  If  they  are  guilty  of 
sedition,  let  them  be  fined  and  imprisoned.  If  they  omit,  in 
their  public  ministrations,  to  pray  for  King  William,  for  Queen 
Mary,  and  for  the  Parliament  assembled  under  those  most 
religious  sovereigns,  let  the  penal  clauses  of  the  Act  of  Uni- 
formity be  put  in  force.  If  this  be  not  enough,  let  His  Majesty 
be  empowered  to  tender  the  oaths  to  any  clergyman  ;  and,  if 
the  oaths  so  tendered  are  refused,  let  deprivation  follow.  In 
this  way  any  nonjuring  bishop  or  rector  who  may  be  puspected, 
though  he  cannot  be  legally  convicted,  of  intriguing,  of  writing, 
of  talking,  against  the  present  settlement,  may  be  at  once  re- 
moved from  his  office.  But  why  insist  on  ejecting  a  pious  and 
laborious  minister  of  religion,  who  never  lifts  a  finger  or  utters 
a  word  against  the  government,  and  who,  as  often  as  he  per- 
forms morning  or  evening  service,  prays  from  his  heart  for  a 
blessing  on  the  rulers  set  over  him  by  Providence,  but  who  will 
not  take  an  oath  which  seems  to  him  to  imply  a  right  in  the 
people  to  depose  a  sovereign  ?  Surely  we  do  all  that  is  neces- 
sary if  we  leave  men  of  this  sort  at  the  mercy  of  the  very  prince 
to  whom  they  refuse  to  swear  fidelity.  If  he  is  willing  to  bear 
with  their  scrupulosity,  if  he  considers  them,  notwithstanding 
their  prejudices,  as  innocent  and  useful  members  of  society,  who 
else  can  be  entitled  to  complain  ? 

The  Whigs  were  vehement  on  the  other  side.      They  scru- 


104  '    HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

tinized,  with  ingenuity  sharpened  by  hatred,  the  claims  of  the 
clergy  to  the  public  gratitude,  and  sometimes  went  so  far  as 
altogether  to  deny  that  the  order  had  in  the  preceding  year 
deserved  well  of  the  nation.  It  was  true  that  bishops  and 
priests  had  stood  up  against  the  tyranny  of  the  late  King :  hut 
it  was  equally  true  that,  but  for  the  obstinacy  with  which  they 
had  opposed  the  Exclusion  Bill,  he  never  would  have  been 
King,  and  that,  but  for  their  adulation  and  their  doctrine  of 
passive  obedience,  he  would  never  have  ventured  to  be  guilty 
of  such  tyranny.  Their  chief  business,  during  a  quarter  of  a 
century,  had  been  to  teach  the  people  to  cringe  and  the  prince 
to  domineer.  They  were  guilty  of  the  blood  of  Russell,  of 
Sidney,  of  every  brave  and  honest  Englishman  who  had  been 
put  to  death  for  attempting  to  save  the  realm  from  Popery  and 
despotism.  Never  had  they  breathed  a  whisper  against  arbitrary 
power  till  arbitrary  power  began  to  menace  their  own  property  and 
dignity.  Then,  no  doubt,  forgetting  all  their  old  commonplaces 
about  submitting  to  Nero,  they  had  made  haste  to  save  themselves. 
Grant, — such  was  the  cry  of  these  eager  disputants, — grant 
that,  in  saving  themselves,  they  saved  the  constitution.  Are 
we  therefore  to  forget  that  they  had  previously  endangered  it  ? 
And  are  we  to  reward  them  by  now  permitting  them  to  destroy 
it  ?  Here  is  a  class  of  men  closely  connected  with  the  state.  A 
large  part  of  the  produce  of  the  soil  has  been  assigned  to  them 
for  their  maintenance.  Their  chiefs  have  seats  iu  the  legisla- 
ture, wide  domains,  stately  palaces.  By  this  privileged  body 
the  great  mass  of  the  population  is  lectured  every  week  from 
the  chair  of  authority.  To  this  privileged  body  has  been  com- 
mitted the  supreme  direction  of  liberal  education.  Oxford  and 
Cambridge,  Westminster,  "Winchester,  and  Eton,  are  under 
priestly  government.  By  the  priesthood  will  to  a  great  extent 
be  formed  the  character  of  the  nobility  and  gentry  of  the  next 
generation.  Of  the  higher  clergy  some  have  in  their  gift 
numerous  and  valuable  benefices  ;  others  have  the  privilege  of 
appointing  judges  who  decide  grave  questions  affecting  the 
liberty,  the  property,  the  reputation  of  Their  Majesties'  subjects. 
•  And  is  an  order  thus  favoured  by  the  state  to  give  no  guarantee 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  105 

to  the  state  ?  On  what  principle  can  it  be  contended  that  it  is 
unnecessary  to  ask  from  an  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  or  from 
a  Bishop  of  Durham  that  promise  of  fidelity  to  the  government 
which  all  allow  that  it  is  necessary  to  demand  from  every  lay- 
man who  serves  the  Crown  in  the  humblest  office  ?  Every 
exciseman,  every  collector  of  the  customs,  who  refuses  to  swear, 
is  to  be  deprived  of  his  bread.  For  these  humble  martyrs  of 
passive  obedience  and  hereditary  right  nobody  has  a  word  to 
say.  Yet  an  ecclesiastical  magnate  who  refuses  to  swear  is  to 
be  suffered  to  retain  emoluments,  patronage,  power,  equal  to 
those  of  a  great  minister  of  state.  It  is  said  that  it  is  superfluous 
to  impose  the  oaths  on  a  clergyman,  because  he  may  be  punished 
if  he  breaks  the  law.  Why  is  not  the  same  argument  urged  in 
favour  of  the  layman?  And  why,  if  the  clergyman  really 
means  to  observe  the  laws,  does  he  scruple  to  take  the  oaths  ? 
The  law  commands  him  to  designate  William  and  Mary  as 
King  and  Queen,  to  do  this  in  the  most  sacred  place,  to  do  this  in 
the  administration  of  the  most  solemn  of  all  the  rites  of  religion. 
The  law  commands  him  to  pray  that  the  illustrious  pair  may  be 
defended  by  a  special  providence,  that  they  may  be  victorious  over 
every  enemy,  and  that  their  Parliament  may  by  divine  guidance 
be  led  to  take  such  a  course  as  may  promote  their  safety,  honour 
and  welfare.  Can  we  believe  that  his  conscience  will  suffer 
him  to  do  all  this,  and  yet  will  not  suffer  him  to  promise  that 
he  will  be  a  faithful  subject  to  them  ? 

To  the  proposition  that  the  nonjuring  clergy  should  be  left 
to  the  mercy  of  the  King,  the  Whigs,  with  some  justice,  replied 
that  no  scheme  could  be  devised  more  unjust  to  His  Majesty. 
The  matter,  they  said,  is  one  of  public  concern,  one  in  which 
every  Englishman  who  is  unwilling  to  be  the  slave  of  France 
arid  of  Home  has  a  deep  interest.  In  such  a  case  it  would  be  un- 
worthy of  the  Estates  of  the  Realm  to  shrink  from  the  responsi- 
bility of  providing  for  the  common  safety,  to  try  to  obtain  for 
themselves  the  praise  of  tenderness  and  liberality,  and  to  leave 
to  the  Sovereign  the  odious  task  of  proscription.  A  law  requir- 
ing all  public  functionaries,  civil,  military,  ecclesiastical,  without 
distinction  of  persons,  to  take  the  oaths  is  at  least  equal.  It 


106  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

excludes  all  suspicion  of  partiality,  of  personal  malignity,  of 
secret  spying  and  talebearing.  But,  if  an  arbitrary  discretion, 
is  left  to  the  Government,  if  one  nonjuring  priest  is  suffered  to 
keep  a  lucrative  benefice  while  another  is  turned  with  his  wife 
and  children  into  the  street,  every  ejection  will  be  considered  as 
an  act  of  cruelty,  and  will  be  imputed  as  a  crime  to  the  sovereign 
and  his  ministers.* 

Thus  the  Parliament  had  to  decide,  at  the  same  moment, 
what  quantity  of  relief  should  be  granted  to  the  consciences  of 
nonconformists  and  what  quantity  of  pressure  should  be  applied 
to  the  consciences  of  the  clergy  of  the  Established  Church.  The 
King  conceived  a  hope  that  it  might  be  in  his  power  to  effect  a 
compromise  agreeable  to  all  parties.  He  flattered  himself  that 
the  Tories  might  be  induced  to  make  some  concession  to  the 
dissenters,  on  condition  that  the  Whigs  would  be  lenient  to  the 
Jacobites.  He  determined  to  try  what  his  personal  intervention 
would  effect.  It  chanced  that,  a  few  hours  after  the  Lords  had 
read  the  Comprehension  Bill  a  second  time  and  the  Bill  touch- 
ing the  Oaths  a  first  time,  he  had  occasion  to  go  down  to  Par- 
liament for  the  purpose  of  giving  his  assent  to  a  law.  From  the 
throne  he  addressed  both  Houses,  and  expressed  an  earnest  wish 
that  they  would  consent  to  modify  the  existing  laws  in  such  a 
manner  that  all  Protestants  might  be  admitted  to  public  employ- 
ment.! It  was  well  understood  that  he  was  willing,  if  the 
legislature  would  comply  with  his  request,  to  let  clergymen  who 
were  already  beneficed  continue  to  hold  their  benefices  without 
swearing  allegiance  to  him.  His  conduct  on  this  occasion 
deserves  undoubtedly  the  praise  of  disinterestedness.  It  is 
honourable  to  him  that  he  attempted  to  purchase  liberty  of  con- 
science for  his  subjects  by  giving  up  a  safeguard  of  his  own 
crown.  But  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  he  showed  Jess  wis- 
dom than  virtue.  The  only  Englishman  in  his  Privy  Council 
whom  he  had  consulted,  if  Burnet  was  correctly  informed,  was 
Richard  Hampden  ;  $  and  Richard  Hampden,  though  a  highly 

*  As  to  this  controversy,  see  Buniet,  ii.  7,  8,  9  ;  Grey's  Debates,  April  19  and 
22, 168!) ;  Commons'  Journals  of  A  mil  20  and  22  ;  Lords'  Journals,  April  21. 
t  Lords'  Journals,  March  16  1689.  $  Burnet,  ii.  7,  8. 


WILLIAM   AND   MARY.  107 

respectable  man,  was  so  far  from  being  able  to  answer  for  the 
Whig  party  that  he  could  not  answer  even  for  his  own  son  John, 
whose  temper,  naturally  vindictive,  had  been  exasperated  into 
ferocity  by  the  stings  of  remorse  and  shame.  The  King  soon 
found  that  there  was  in  the  hatred  of  the  two  great  factions  an 
energy  which  was  wanting  to  their  love.  The  Whigs,  though 
they  were  almost  unanimous  in  thinking  that  the  sacramental 
test  ought  to  be  abolished,  were  by  no  means  unanimous  in 
thinking  that  moment  well  chosen  for  the  abolition  ;  and  even 
those  Whigs  who  were  most  desirous  to  see  the  nonconformists 
relieved  without  delay  from  civil  disabilities  were  fully  deter- 
mined not  to  forego  the  opportunity  of  humbling  and  punishing 
the  class  to  whose  instrumentality  chiefly  was  to  be  ascribed 
that  tremendous  reflux  of  public  feeling  which  had  followed  the 
dissolution  of  the  Oxford  Parliament.  To  put  the  Janes,  the 
Souths,  the  Sherlocks  into  such  a  situation  that  they  must  either 
starve,  or  recant,  publicly,  and  with  the  Gospel  at  their  lips,  all 
the  ostentatious  professions  of  many  years  was  a  revenge  too 
delicious  to  be  relinquished.  The  Tory,  on  the  other  hand 
sincerely  respected  and  pitied  those  clergymen  who  felt  scruples 
about  the  oaths.  But  the  Test  was,  in  his  view,  essential  to  the 
safety  of  the  established  religion,  and  must  not  be  surrendered 
for  the  purpose  of  saving  any  man  however  eminent  from  any 
hardship  however  serious.  It  would  be  a  sad  day  doubtless  for 
the  Church  when  the  episcopal  bench,  the  chapter  houses  of 
cathedrals,  the  halls  of  colleges,  would  miss  some  men  renowned 
for  piety  and  learning.  But  it  would  be  a  still  sadder  day  for 
the  church  when  an  Independent  should  bear  the  white  staff  or 
a  Baptist  sit  on  the  woolsack.  Each  party  tried  to  serve  those 
for  whom  it  was  interested :  but  neither  party  would  consent  to 
grant  favourable  terms  to  its  enemies.  The  result  was  that  the 
nonconformists  remained  excluded  from  office  in  the  State,  and 
the  nonjurors  were  ejected  from  office  in  the  Church. 

In  the  House  of  Commons,  no  member  thought  it  expedient 
to  propose  the  repeal  of  the  Test  Act.  But  leave  was  given  to 
bring  in  a  bill  repealing  the  Corporation  Act,  which  had  been 


108  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

passed  by  the  Cavalier  Parliament  soon  after  the  Restoration, 
and  which  contained  a  clause  requiring  all  municipal  magistrates 
to  receive  the  sacrament  according  to  the  forms  of  the  Church 
of  England.  When  this  bill  was  about  to  be  committed,  it  was 
moved  by  the  Tories  that  the  committee  should  be  instructed  to 
make  no  alteration  in  the  law  touching  the  sacrament.  Those 
Whigs  who  were  zealous  for  the  Comprehension  must  have  been 
placed  by  this  motion  in  an  embarrassing  position.  To  vote  for 
the  instruction  would  have  been  inconsistent  with  their  princi- 
ples. To  vote  against  it  would  have  been  to  break  with  Not- 
tingham. A  middle  course  was  found.  The  adjournment  of 
the  debate  was  moved  and  carried  by  a  hundred  and  sixteen  votes 
to  a  hundred  and  fourteen  ;  and  the  subject  was  not  revived.* 
In  the  House  of  Lords  a  motion  was  made  for  the  abolition  of 
the  sacramental  test,  but  was  rejected  by  a  large  majority. 
Many  of  those  who  thought  the  motion  right  in  principle  thought 
it  ill  timed.  A  protest  was  entered ;  but  it  was  signed  only  by 
a  few  peers  of  no  great  authority.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that 
two  great  chiefs  of  the  Whig  party,  who  were  in  general  very 
attentive  to  their  parliamentary  duty,  Devonshire  and  Shrews- 
bury, absented  themselves  on  this  occasion. f 

The  debate  on  the  Test  in  the  Upper  House  was  speedily 
followed  by  a  debate  on  the  last  clause  of  the  Comprehension 
Bill.  By  that  clause  it  was  provided  that  thirty  Bishops  and 
priests  should  be  commissioned  to  revise  the  liturgy  and  canons, 
and  to  suggest  amendments.  On  this  subject  the  Whig  peers 
were  almost  all  of  one  mind.  They  mustered  strong  and  spoke 
warmly.  Why,  they  asked,  were  none  but  members  of  the 
sacerdotal  order  to  be  entrusted  with  this  duty  ?  Were  the  laity 
no  part  of  the  Church  of  England?  When  the  Commission 
should  have  made  its  report,  laymen  would  have  to  decide  on 
the  recommendations  contained  in  that  report.  Not  a  line  of 

*  Bnrnet  f=ays  (ii.  8),  that  the  proposition  to  abolish  the  sacramental  test  was 
rejected  by  a  rr-at  majority  in  both  Houses.  But  his  memory  deceived  him; 
for  the  only  division  on  the  subject  in  the  House  of  Commons  was  that  mentioned 
in  the  text.  It  is  remarkable  that  Gwvn  and  Rowe,  who  were  tellers  for  the 
majority,  were  two  of  the  strongest  Whigs  in  the  House. 

t  Lords'  Journal*,  i\larch21, 1689. 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  109 

the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  could  be  altered  but  by  the  au- 
thority of  King,  Lords,  and  Commons.  The  King  was  a  lay- 
man. Five  sixths  of  the  Lords  were  laymen.  All  the  members 
of  the  House  of  Commons  were  laymen.  Was  it  not  absurd  to  say 
that  laymen  were  incompetent  to  examine  into  a  matter  which 
it  was  acknowledged  that  laymen  must  in  the  last  resort  deter- 
mine ?  And  could  anything  be  more  opposite  to  the  whole  spirit 
of  Protestantism  than  the  notion  that  a  certain  preternatural 
power  of  judging  in  spiritual  cases  was  vouchsafed  to  a  particu- 
lar caste,  and  to  that  caste  alone ;  that  such  men  as  Selden,  as 
Hale,  as  Boyle,  were  less  competent  to  give  an  opinion  on  a 
collect  or  a  creed  than  the  youngest  and  silliest  chaplain  who,  in 
a  remote  manor  house,  passed  his  life  in  drinking  ale  and  play- 
ing at  shovelboard  ?  What  God  had  instituted  no  earthly  power, 
lay  or  clerical,  could  alter :  and  of  things  instituted  by  luimau 
beings  a  layman  was  surely  as  competent  as  a  clergyman  to 
judge.  That  the  Anglican  liturgy  and  canons  were  of  purely 
human  institution  the  Parliament  acknowledged  by  referring 
them  to  a  Commission  for  revision  and  correction.  How  could 
it  then  be  maintained  that  in  such  a  Commission  the  laity,  so 
Vast  a  majority  of  the  population,  the  laity,  whose  edification 
was  the  main  end  of  all  ecclesiastical  regulations,  and  whose  in- 
nocent tastes  ought  to  be  carefully  consulted  in  the  framing  of 
the  public  services  of  religion,  ought  not  to  have  a  single  repre- 
sentative ?  Precedent  was  directly  opposed  to  this  odious  dis- 
tinction. Repeatedly,  since  the  light  of  reformation  had  dawned 
on  England,  Commissioners  had  been  empowered  by  law  to  revise 
the  canons ;  and  on  every  one  of  those  occasions  some  of  the 
Commissioners  had  been  laymen.  In  the  present  case  the  pro- 
posed arrangement  was  peculiary  objectionable.  For  the  ob- 
ject of  issuing  the  commission  was  the  conciliating  of  dissenters  ; 
and  it  was  therefore  most  desirable  that  the  Commissioners 
should  be  men  in  whose  fairness  and  moderation  dissenters  could 
confide.  Would  thirty  such  men  be  easily  found  in  the  higher 
ranks  of  the  clerical  profession  ?  The  duty  of  the  legislature 
was  to  arbitrate  between  two  contending  parties,  the  Nonconform- 
ist divines  and  the  Anglican  divines,  aud  it  would  be  the  gross- 


110  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

est  injustice  to  commit  to  one  of  thoss  parties  the  office  of  um- 
pire. 

On  these  grounds  the  Whigs  proposed  an  amendment  to  the 
feffect  that  laymen  should  be  joined  with  clergymen  in  the 
Commission.  The  contest  was  sharp.  Burnet,  who  had  just 
taken  his  seat  among  the  peers,  and  who  seems  to  have  been 
bent  on  winning  at  almost  any  price  the  good  will  of  his 
brethren,  argued  with  all  his  constitutional  warmth  for  the 
clause  as  it  stood.  The  numbers  on  the  division  proved  to  be 
exactly  equal.  The  consequence  was  that,  according  to  the 
rules  of  the  House,  the  amendment  was  lost.* 

At  length  the  Comprehension  Bill  was  sent  down  to  the 
Commons,  There  it  would  easily  have  been  carried  by  two 
to  one,  if  it  had  been  supported  by  all  the  friends  of  religious 
liberty.  But  on  this  subject  the  High  Churchmen  could 
count  on  the  support  of  a  large  body  of  Low  Churchmen. 
Those  members  who  wished  well  to  Nottingham's  plan  saw 
that  they  were  outnumbered,  and,  despairing  of  a  victory,  be- 
gan to  meditate  a  retreat.  Just  at  this  time  a  suggestion 
was  thrown  out  which  united  all  suffrages.  The  ancient 
usage  was  that  a  Convocation  should  be  summoned  together 

C7  £3 

with  a  Parliament ;  and  it  might  well  be  argued  that,  if  ever 
the  advice  of  a  Convocation  could  be  needed,  it  must  be  when 
changes  in  the  ritual  and  discipline  of  the  Church  were  under 
consideration.  But,  in  consequence  of  the  irregular  manner 
in  which  the  Estates  of  the  Realm  had  been  brought  together 
during  the  vacancy  of  the  throne,  there  was  no  Convocation. 
It  was  proposed  that  the  House  should  advise  the  King  to 
take  measures  for  supplying  this  defect,  and  that  the  fate  of 
the  Comprehension  Bill  should  not  be  decided  till  the  clergy 
had  had  an  opportunity  of  declaring  their  opinion  through  the 
ancient  and  legitimate  organ. 

This  proposition  was  received  with  general  acclamation. 
The  Tories  were  well  pleased  to  see  such  honour  done  to  the 
priesthood.  Those  Whigs  who  were  against  the  Compre- 
hension Bill  were  well  pleased  to  see  it  laid  aside,  certainly 

*  Lords'  Journals,  April  5,  1689  ;  Buriiet  ii.  10. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  Ill 

for  a  year,  probably  for  ever.  Those  Whigs  who  were  for  the 
Comprehension  Bill  were  well  pleased  to  escape  without  a  de- 
feat. Some  of  them  indeed  were  not  without  hopes  that  mild 
and  liberal  counsels  might  prevail  in  the  ecclesiastical  senate. 
An  address  requesting  William  to  summon  the  Convocation 
was  voted  without  a  division :  the  concurrence  of  the  Lords 
was  asked :  the  Lords  concurred :  the  address  was  carried  up 
to  the  throne  by  both  Houses:  the  King  promised  that  he 
would,  at  a  convenient  season,  do  what  his  Parliament  desired ; 
and  Nottingham's  bill  was  not  again  mentioned. 

Many  writers,  imperfectly  acquainted  with  the  history  of 
that  age,  have  inferred  from  these  proceedings  that  the  House 
of  Commons  was  an  assembly  of  High  Churchmen :  but 
nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  two  thirds  of  the  members 
were  either  Low  Churchmen  or  not  Churchmen  at  all.  A 
very  few  days  before  this  time  an  occurrence  had  taken  place 
unimportant  in  itself,  but  highly  significant  as  an  indication 
of  the  temper  of  the  majority.  It  had  been  suggested  that 
the  House  ought,  in  conformity  with  ancient  usage,  to  ad- 
journ over  the  Easter  holidays.  The  Puritans  and  Latitu- 
dinarians  objected :  there  was  a  sharp  debate :  the  High 
Churchmen  did  not  venture  to  divide ;  and  to  the  great 
scandal  of  many  grave  persons,  the  Speaker  took  the  chair  at 
nine  o'clock  on  Easter  Monday  ;  and  there  was  a  long  and  busy 
sitting.* 

This  however  was  by  no  means  the  strongest  proof  which, 
the  Commons  gave  that  they  were  far  indeed  from  feeling  ex- 
treme reverence  or  tenderness  for  the  Anglican  hierarchy.  The 
bill  for  settling  the  oaths  had  just  come  down  from  the  Lords 

»  Commons'  Journals,  March  28,  April  1, 1689  ;  Paris  Gazette,  April  23.  Part 
of  the  passage  in  the  Paris  Gazette  is  worth  quoting.  "  II  y  cut,  ce  jour  1& 
(March  28),  une  grande  contestation  dans  la  Chambre  Basse,  sur  la  proposition 
qui  fut  faite  de  remettre  les  seances  apres  les  f&tes  de  Pasques  observe'es  tou- 
jours  par  1'Eglise  Anglicane.  Les  Protestans  eonformistes  furent  de  cet  avis ; 
et  les  Pre.sbyteriens  emporterent  a  la  pluralite  des  voix  que  les  seances  recom- 
menceroient  le  Lundy,  seconde  feste  de  Pasques."  The  Low  Churchmen  are 
frequently  designated  as  Presbyterians  by  the  French  and  Dutch  writers  of  that 
aae.  There  were  not  twenty  Presbyterians,  properly  HO  called,  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  See  A  Smith  aud  Cutler's  plain  Dialogue  about  Whig  and  Tory,  1090. 


112  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

framed  in  a  manner  favourable  to  the  clergy.  All  lay  function- 
aries were  required  to  swear  fealty  to  the  King  and  Queen  on 
pain  of  expulsion  from  office.  But  it  was  provided  that  every 
divine  who  already  held  a  benefice  might  continue  to  hold  it 
without  swearing,  unless  the  Government  should  see  reason  to 
call  on  him  specially  for  an  assurance  of  his  loyalty.  Burnet 
had,  partly,  no  doubt,  from  the  goodnature  and  generosity 
which  belonged  to  his  character,  and  partly  from  a  desire  to 
conciliate  his  brethren,  supported  this  arrangement  in  the 
Upper  House  with  great  energv-  But  in  the  Lower  House  the 
feeling  against  the  Jacobite  priests  was  irresistibly  strong.  On 
the  very  day  on  which  that  House  voted,  without  a  division, 
the  address  requesting  the  King  to  summon  the  Convocation,  a 
clause  was  proposed  and  carried  which  required  every  person 
who  held  any  ecclesiastical  or  academical  preferment  to  take 
the  oaths  by  the  first  of  August  1 689,  on  pain  of  suspension. 
Six  months  to  be  reckoned  from  that  day,  were  allowed  to  the 
non juror  for  reconsideration.  If,  on  the  first  of  February 
1690,  he  still  continued  obstinate,  he  was  to  be  finally  deprived. 
The  bill,  thus  amended,  was  sent  back  to  the  Lords.  The 
Lords  adhered  to  their  original  resolution.  Conference  after 
conference  was  held.  Compromise  after  compromise  was  sug- 
gested. From  the  imperfect  reports  which  have  come  down 
to  us  it  appears  that  every  argument  in  favour  of  lenity  was 
forcibly  urged  by  Burnet.  But  the  Commons  were  firm :  time 
pressed  :  the  unsettled  state  of  the  law  caused  inconvenience  in 
every  department  of  the  public  service ;  and  the  Peers  very 
reluctantly  gave  way.  They  at  the  same  time  added  a  clause, 
empowering  the  King  to  bestow  pecuniary  allowances  out  of 
the  forfeited  benefices  on  a  few  nonjuring  clergymen.  The 
number  of  clergymen  thus  favoured  was  not  to  exceed  twelve. 
The  allowance  was  not  to  exceed  one-third  of  the  income  for- 
feited. Some  zealous  Whigs  were  unwilling  to  grant  even 
this  indulgence ;  but  the  Commons  were  content  with  the 
victory  which  they  had  won,  and  justly  thought  that  it  would 
be  ungracious  to  refuse  so  slight  a  concession.* 

*  Accounts  of  what  passed  at  the  Conferences  will  be  found  in  the  Journals  »f 
the  Houses  and  deserve  to  be  read. 


WILLIAM   AND    MAKY.  113 

These  debates  were  interrupted,  during  a  short  time,  by  the 
solemnities  and  festivities  of  the  Coronation.  When  the  day 
fixed  for  that  great  ceremony  drew  near,  the  House  of  Com- 
mons resolved  itself  into  a  committee  for  the  purpose  of  settling 
the  form  of  words  in  which  our  Sovereigns  were  thenceforward 
to  enter  into  covenant  with  the  nation.  All  parties  were  agreed 
as  to  the  propriety  of  requiring  the  King  to  swear  that,  in  tem- 
poral matters,  he  would  govern  according  to  law,  and  would 
execute  justice  in  mercy.  But  about  the  terms  of  the  oath 
which  related  to  the  spiritual  institutions  of  the  realm  there 
was  much  debate.  Should  the  chief  magistrate  promise  simply 
to  maintain  the  Protestant  religion  established  by  law,  or  should 
•he  promise  to  maintain  that  religion  as  it  should  be  hereafter 
established  by  law  ?  The  majority  preferred  the  former  phrase. 
The  latter  phrase  was  preferred  by  those  Whigs  who  were  for 
a  Comprehension.  But  it  was  admitted  that  the  two  phrases 
really  meant  the  same  thing,  and  that  the  oath,  however  it 
might  be  worded,  would  bind  the  Sovereign  in  his  executive 
capacity  only.  This  was  indeed  evident  from  the  very  nature 
of  the  transaction.  Any  compact  may  be  annulled  by  the  free 
consent  of  the  party  who  alone  is  entitled  to  claim  the  perform- 
ance. It  was  never  doubted  by  the  most  rigid  casuist  that  a 
debtor,  who  has  bound  himself  under  the  most  awful  impreca- 
tions to  pay  a  debt,  may  lawfully  withhold  payment  if  the  creditor 
is  willing  to  cancel  the  obligation.  And  it  is  equally  clear  that 
no  assurance,  exacted  from  a  King  by  the  Estates  of  his  king- 
dom, can  bind  him  to  refuse  compliance  with  what  may  at  a 
future  time  be  the  wish  of  those  Estates. 

A  bill  was  drawn  up  in  conformity  with  the  resolutions  of 
the  Committee,  and  was  rapidly  passed  through  every  stage. 
After  the  third  reading,  a  foolish  man  stood  up  to  propose  a 
rider,  declaring  that  the  oath  was  not  meant  to  restrain  the 
Sovereign  from  consenting  to  any  change  in  the  ceremonial  of 
the  Church,  provided  always  that  episcopacy  and  a  written 
form  of  prayer  were  retained.  The  gross  absurdity  of  this 
motion  was  exposed  by  several  eminent  members.  Such  a 
clause,  they  justly  remarked,  would  bind  the  King  under  pre- 
VOL.  III.— 8 


114  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

tence  of  setting  him  free.  The  coronation  oath,  they  said,  was 
never  intended  to  trammel  him  in  his  legislative  capacity. 
Leave  that  oath  as  it  is  now  drawn,  and  no  prince  can  misunder- 
stand it.  No  prince  can  seriously  imagine  that  the  two  Houses 
mean  to  exact  from  him  a  promise  that  he  will  put  a  Veto  on 
laws  which  they  may  hereafter  think  necessary  to  the  wellbeing 
of  the  country.  Or  if  any  prince  should  so  strangely  misappre- 
hend the  nature  of  the  contract  between  him  and  his  subjects, 
any  divine,  any  lawyer,  to  whose  advice  he  may  have  recourse, 
will  set  his  mind  at  ease.  But  if  this  rider  should  pass,  it  will 
be  impossible  to  deny  that  the  coronation  oath  is  meant  to  pre- 
vent the  King  from  giving  his  assent  to  bills  which  may  be 
presented  to  him  by  the  Lords  and  Commons ;  and  the  most 
serious  inconveniencies  may  follow.  These  arguments  were 
felt  to  be  unanswerable,  and  the  proviso  was  rejected  without  a 
division.* 

Every  person  who  has  read  these  debates  must  be  fully  con- 
vinced that  the  statesmen  who  framed  the  coronation  oath  did 
not  mean  to  bind  the  King  in  his  legislative  capacity. f  Un- 
happily, more  than  a  hundred  years  later,  a  scruple,  which  those 
statesmen  thought  too  absurd  to  be  seriously  entertained  by  any 
human  being,  found  its  way  into  a  mind,  honest,  indeed,  and  re- 
ligious, but  narrow  and  obstinate  by  nature,  and  at  once  debili- 
tated and  excited  by  disease.  Seldom,  indeed,  have  the  ambi- 
tion and  perfidy  of  tyrants  produced  evils  greater  than  those 

*  Journals,  March  28, 1689  ;  Grey's  Debates. 

t  I  will  quote  some  expressions  which  have  been  preserved  in  the  concise 
reports  of  these  debates.  Those  expressions  are  quite  decisive  as  to  the  sense  in 
which  the  oath  was  understood  by  the  legislators  who  framed  it.  Musgrave  said, 
"  There  is  no  occasion  for  this  proviso.  It  cannot  be  imagined  that  any  bill  from 
hence  will  ever  distroy  the  legislative  powor.  "  Finch  said,  "  The  words,  '  estab- 
lished by  law,'  hinder  not  the  king  from  parsing  any  bill  for  the  relief  of  Dissen- 
ters. The  proviso  makes  the  scruple,  and  gives  the  occasion  for  it."  Sawyer 
snid,  "This  is  the  first  proviso  of  this  nature  that  ever  was  in  any  bill.  It  seems 
to  strike  at  the  legislative  power."  Sir  Robert  Cotton  said.  "  Though  the  proviso 
looks  well  and  healing,  yet  it  seems  to  imply  a  defect.  Not  able  to  alter  laws  as 
occasion  requires  !  This,  instead  of  one  scruple,  raises  more,  as  if  you  were  so 
bound  up  to  the  ecclesiastical  government  that  you  cannot  make  any  new  laws 
without  such  a  proviso."  Sir  Thomas  Lee  said,  "  It  will,  I  fear,  creep  in  that 
other  laws  cannot  be  made  without  such  a  proviso  :  therefore  I  would  lay  it 
aside." 


WILLIAM  AND   MART.  115 

which  were  brought  on  our  country  by  that  fatal  conscientious- 
ness. A  conjuncture  singularly  auspicious,  a  conjuncture  at 
which  wisdom  and  justice  might  perhaps  have  reconciled  races 
and  sects  long  hostile,  and  might  have  made  the  British  Islands 
one  truly  United  Kingdom,  was  suffered  to  pass  away.  The 
opportunity,  once  lost,  returned  no  more.  Two  generations  of 
public  men  have  since  laboured  with  imperfect  success  to  repair 
the  error  which  was  then  committed  ;  nor  is  it  improbable  that 
some  of  the  penalties  of  that  error  may  continue  to  afflict  a  re- 
mote posterity. 

The  bill  by  which  the  oath  was  settled  passed  the  Upper 
House  without  amendment.  All  the  preparations  were  complete  ; 
and,  on  the  eleventh  of  April,  the  coronation  took  place.  In 
some  things  it  differed  from  ordinary  coronations.  The  repre- 
sentatives of  the  people  attended  the  ceremony  in  a  body,  and 
were  sumptuously  feasted  in  the  Exchequer  Chamber.  Mary, 
being  not  merely  Queen  Consort,  but  also  Queen  Regnant,  was 
inaugurated  in  all  things  like  a  King,  was  girt  with  the  sword, 
lifted  up  into  tli3  throne,  and  presented  with  the  Bible,  the 
spurs,  and  the  orb.  Of  the  temporal  grandees  of  the  realm,  and 
of  their  wives  and  daughters,  the  muster  was  great  and  splen- 
did. None  could  be  surprised  that  the  Whig  aristocracy  should 
swell  the  triumph  of  Whig  principles.  But  the  Jacobites  saw, 
with  concern,  that  many  Lords  who  had  voted  for  a  Regency 
bore  a  conspicuous  part  in  the  ceremonial.  The  King's  crown 
was  carried  by  Grafton,  the  Queen's  by  Somerset.  The  pointed 
sword,  emblematical  of  temporal  justice,  was  borne  by  Pem- 
broke. Ormond  was  Lord  High  Constable  for  the  day,  and 
rode  up  the  hall  on  the  right  hand  of  the  hereditary  champion, 
who  thrice  flung  down  his  glove  on  the  pavement,  and  thrice  de- 
fied to  mortal  combat  the  false  traitor  who  should  gainsay  the 
title  of  William  and  Mary.  Among  the  noble  damsels  who 
supported  the  gorgeous  train  of  the  Queen  was  her  beautiful  and 
gentle  cousin,  the  Lady  Henrietta  Hyde,  whose  father,  Rochester, 
had  to  the  last  contended  against  the  resolution  which  declared 
the  throne  vacant.*  The  show  of  Bishops,  indeed  was  scanty. 
»  Lady  Henrietta,  whom  her  uncle  Clarendon  calls  "  pretty  little  Lady  Hen- 


116  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

The  Primate  did  not  make  his  appearance  and  his  place  was 
supplied  by  Compton.  On  one  side  of  Compton,  the  paten  was 
carried  by  Lloyd,  Bishop  of  Saint  Asaph,  eminent  among  the 
seven  confessors  of  the  preceding  year.  On  the  other  side, 
Sprat,  Bishop  of  Rochester,  lately  a  member  of  the  High  Com- 
mission, had  charge  of  the  chalice.  Burnet,  the  junior  prelate, 
preached  with  all  his  wonted  ability,  and  more  than  his  wonted 
taste  and  judgment.  His  grave  and  eloquent  discourse  was 
polluted  neither  by  flattery  nor  by  malignity.  He  is  said  to 
have  been  greatly  applauded ;  and  it  may  well  be  believed  that 
the  animated  peroration  in  which  he  implored  heaven  to  bless 
the  royal  pair  with  long  life  and  mutual  love,  with  obedient 
subjects,  wise  counsellors,  and  faithful  allies,  with  gallant  fleets 
and  armies,  with  victory,  with  peace,  and  finally  with  crowns 
more  glorious  and  more  durable  than  those  which  then  glittered 
on  the  altar  of  the  Abbey,  drew  forth  the  loudest  hums  of  the 
Commons.* 

On  the  whole,  the  ceremony  went  off  well,  and  produced 
something  like  a  revival,  faint,  indeed,  and  transient,  of  the 
enthusiasm  of  the  preceding  December.  The  day  was,  in  Lpn- 
don,  and  in  many  other  places,  a  day  of  general  rejoicing.  The 
churches  were  filled  in  the  morning  :  the  afternoon  was  spent  in 
sport  and  carousing  ;  and  at  night  bonfires  were  kindled,  rockets 
discharged,  and  windows  lighted  up.  The  Jacobites  however 
contrived  to  discover  or  to  invent  abundant  matter  for  scurrility 
and  sarcasm.  They  complained  bitterly  that  the  way  from  the 
hall  to  the  western  door  of  the  Abbey  had  been  lined  by  Dutch 
soldiers.  Was  it  seemly  that  an  English  king  should  enter  into 
the  most  solemn  of  engagements  with  the  English  nation  behind 
a  triple  hedge~of  foreign  swords  and  bayonets  ?  Little  affrays, 
such  as,  at  every  great  pageant,  almost  inevitably  take  place 
between  those  who  are  eager  to  see  the  show  and  those  whose 

rietta."  and  "  the  best  child  in  the  world  "  (Diary,  Jan.  1687-8),  was  soon  after 
married  to  the  Earl  of  Dalkeith,  eldest  son  of  the  unfortunate  Duke  of  Mon- 
mouth. 

*  The  sermon  deserves  to  he  read.  See  the  London  Gazette  of  April  14,  1689  ; 
Evelyn's  Diary  ;  Luttrell's  Diary  ;  and  the  Despatch  of  the  Dutch  Ambassadors 
to  the  States  General. 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  117 

business  it  is  to  keep  the  communications  clear,  were  exaggerated 
with  all  the  artifices  of  rhetoric.  One  of  the  alien  mercenaries 
had  backed  his  horse  against  an  honest  citizen  who  pressed 
forward  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  royal  canopy.  Another  had 
rudely  pushed  back  a  woman  with  the  butt  end  of  his  musket. 
Qn  such  grounds  as  these  the  strangers  were  compared  to  those 
Lord  Danes  whose  insolence,  in  the  old  time,  had  provoked  the 
Anglosaxon  population  to  insurrection  and  massacre.  But  there 
was  no  more  fertile  theme  for  censure  than  the  coronation  medal 
which  really  was  absurd  in  design  and  mean  in  execution.  A 
chariot  appeared  conspicuous  on  the  reverse  ;  and  plain  people 
were  at  a  loss  to  understand  what  this  emblem  had  to  do  with 
William  and  Mary.  The  disaffected  wits  solved  the  difficulty 
by  suggesting  that  the  artist  meant  to  allude  to  that  chariot 
which  a  Roman  princess,  lost  to  all  filial  affection,  and  blindly 
devoted  to  the  interests  of  an  ambitious  husband,  drove  over 
the  still  warm  remains  of  her  father.* 

*  A  specimen  of  the  prose  which  the  Jacobites  wrote  on  this  subject  will  be 
found  among  the  Somers  Tracts.  The  Jacobite  verses  were  generally  too  loath- 
some to  be  quoted.  I  select  some  of  the  most  decent  lines  from  a  very  rare  lam- 
poon : 

"  The  eleventh  of  April  has'come  about, 
To  Westminster  went  the  rabble  rout, 
In  order  to  crown  a  bundle  of  clouts, 
A  dainty  fine  King  indeed. 

"  Descended  he  is  from  the  Orange  tree  ; 
Cut,  if  I  can  icad  his  destiny, 
He'\>  once  more  descend  from  another  tree, 
A  dainty  fine  King  indeed. 

"  ne  has  gotten  part  of  the  shape  of  a  man, 
But  more  of  a  monkey,  deny  it  who  can  ; 
He  has  the  head  of  a  goose,  but  the  legs  of  a  crane, 
A  dainty  fine  King  indeed."     . 

A  Frenchman  named  Le  Noble,  who  had  been  banished  from  his  own  country 
for  his  crimes,  but  by  the  connivance  of  the  police,  lurked  in  Paris,  and  earned  a, 
precarious  livelihood  as  a  bookseller's  hacK,  published  on  this  occasion  two  pas- 
quinades, now  extremely  scarce,  "  Le  Couronnement  de  Guillemot  et  de  Guille- 
mette,  avec  le  Sermon  du  grand  DocteurBuniet,"  and  "  LeFestinde  Guillemot." 
In  wit,  taste,  and  good  sense,  Le  Noble's  writings  are  not  inferior  to  the  English 
poem  which  I  have  quoted.  He  tells  us  that  the  Archbishop  of  York  and  the 
Bishop  of  London  had  a  boxing  match  in  the  Abbey  ;  that  the  champion  rode  up 
the  Hall  on  an  ass,  which  turn  ,d  restive  and  kicked  over  the  royal  table  with  all 
the  plate  ;  and  that  the  banquet  ended  in  a  fight  between  the  peers  armed  with 
stools  and  benches,  and  the  cooks  armed  with  spits.  This  sort  of  pleasantry, 
strange  to  say,  found  readers  ;  and  the  writer's  portrait  was  pompously  engraved 
with  the  motto  "  Latrantes  ride  :  te  tna  fama  manet." 


118  HISTORT   OF   ENGLAND. 

Honours  were,  as  usual,  liberally  bestowed  at  this  festive 
season.  Three  garters  which  happened  to  be  at  the  disposal  of 
the  Crown  were  given  to  Devonshire,  Ormond,  and  Schomberg. 
Prince  George  was  created  Duke  of  Cumberland.  Several 
eminent  men  took  new  appellations  by  which  they  must  hence- 
forth be  designated.  Danby  became  Marquess  of  Caermarthen, 
Churchill  Earl  of  Marlbo rough,  and  Bentinck  Earl  of  Portland. 
Mordaunt  was  made  Earl  of  Monmouth,  not  without  some 
murmuring  on  the  part  of  old  Exclusionists,  who  still  remem- 
bered with  fondness  their  Protestant  Duke,  and  who  had  hoped 
that  his  attainder  would  be  reversed,  and  that  his  title  would 
be  borne  by  his  descendants.  It  was  remarked  that  the  name  of 
Halifax  did  not  appear  in  the  list  of  promotions.  None  could 
doubt  that  he  might  easily  have  obtained  either  a  blue  riband 
or  a  ducal  coronet ;  and,  though  he  was  honourably  distinguished 
from  most  of  his  contemporaries  by  his  scorn  of  illicit  gain,  it  was 
well  known  that  he  desired  honorary  distinctions  with  a  greedi- 
ness of  which  he  was  himself  ashamed,  and  which  was  un- 
worthyof  his  fine  understanding.  The  truth  is  that  his  ambition 
was  at  this  time  chilled  by  his  fears.  To  those  whom  he  trusted 
he  hinted  his  apprehensions  that  evil  times  were  at  hand.  The 
King's  lile  was  not  worth  a  year's  purchase  :  the  government 
was  disjointed,  the  clergy  and  the  army  disaffected,  the  parlia- 
ment torn  by  factions  :  civil  war  was  already  raging  in  one  part 
of  the  empire  :  foreign  war  was  impending.  At  such  a  moment 
a  minister,  whether  Whig  or  Tory,  might  well  be  uneasy  :  but 
neither  Whig  nor  Tory  had  so  much  to  fear  as  the  Trimmer, 
who  might  not  improbably  find  himself  the  common  mark  at 
which  •both  parties  would  take  aim.  For  these  reasons  Halifax 
determined  to  avoid  all  ostentation  of  power  and  influence,  to 
disarm  envy  by  a  studied  show  of  moderation,  and  to  attach  to 
himself  by  civilities  and  benefits  persons  whose  gratitude  might 
be  useful  in  the  event  of  a  counterrevolution.  The  next  three 
months,  he  said,  would  be  the  time  of  trial.  If  the  government 
got  safe  through  the  summer  it  would  probably  stand.* 

*  Keresby's  Memoirs. 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  113 

Meanwhile  questions  of  external  policy  were  every  day  be- 
coming more  and  more  important.  The  work  at  which  William 
had  toiled  indefatigably  during  many  gloomy  and  anxious  years 
was  at  le::gth  accomplished.  The  great  coalition  was  formed. 
It  was  plain  that  a  desperate  conflict  was  at  hand.  The  oppres- 
sor of  Europe  would  have  to  defend  himself  against  England 
allied  with  Charles  the  Second  King  of  Spain,  with  the  Em- 
peror Leopold,  and  with  the  Germanic  and  Batavian  federa- 
tions, and  was  likely  to  have  no  ally  except  the  Sultan,  who 
was  waging  war  against  the  House  of  Austria  on  the  Danube. 

Lewis  had,  towards  the  close  of  the  preceding  year,  taken 
his  enemies  at  a  disadvantage,  and  had  struck  the  first  blow  be- 
fore they  were  prepared  to  parry  it.  But  that  blow,  though 
heavy,  was  not  aimed  at  the  part  where  it  might  have  been 
mortal.  Had  hostilities  been  commenced  on  the  Batavian 
frontier,  William  and  his  army  would  probably  have  been  de- 
tained on  the  Continent,  and  James  might  have  continued  to 
govern  England.  Happily,  Lewis,  under  an  infatuation  which 
many  pious  Protestants  confidently  ascribed  to  the  righteous 
judgment  of  God,  had  neglected  the  point  on  which  the  fate  of 
the  whole  civilised  world  depended,  and  had  made  a  great  dis- 
play of  power,  promptitude,  and  energy,  in  a  quarter  where  the 
most  splendid  achievements  could  produce  nothing  more  than 
an  illumination  and  a  Te  Deum.  A  French  army  under  the 
command  of  Marshal  Duras  had  invaded  the  Palatinate  and 
some  of  the  neighbouring  principalities.  But  this  expedition, 
though  it  had  been  completely  successful,  and  though  the  skill 
and  vigour  with  which  it  had  been  conducted  had  excited  gen- 
eral admiration,  could  not  perceptibly  affect  the  event  of  the 
tremendous  struggle  which  was  approaching.  France  would 
soon  be  attacked  on  every  side.  It  would  be  impossible  for 
Duras  long  to  retain  possession  of  the  provinces  which  he  had 
surprised  and  overrun.  An  atrocious  thought  rose  in  the  mind 
of  Louvois,  who,  in- military  affairs,  had  the  chief  sway  at  Ver- 
sailles. He  was  a  man  distinguished  by  zeal  for  what  he  thought 
the  public  interests,  by  capacity,  and  by  knowledge  of  all  that 
related  to  the  administration  of  war,  but  of  a  savage  and  obdu- 


120  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

rate  nature.  If  the  cities  of  the  Palatinate  could  not  be  re- 
tained, they  might  be  destroyed.  If  the  soil  of  the  Palatinate 
was  not  to  furnish  supplies  to  the  French,  it  might  be  so  wasted 
that  it  would  at  least  furnish  no  supplies  to  the  Germans.  The 
ironhearted  statesman  submitted  his  plan,  probably  with  much 
management  and  with  some  disguise,  to  Lewis  ;  and  Lewis,  in 
an  evil  hour  for  his  fame,  assented.  Duras  received  orders  to 
turn  one  of  the  fairest  regions  of  E-irope  into  a  wilderness. 
Fifteen  years  had  elapsed  since  Turenne  had  ravaged  part  of 
that  fine  country.  But  the  ravages  committed  by  Turenne, 
though  they  have  left  a  deep  stain  on  his  glory,  were  mere 
sport  in  comparison  with  the  horrors  of  this  second  devastation. 
The  French  commander  announced  to  near  half  a  million  of 
human  beings  that  he  granted  them  three  days  of  grace,  and" 
that,  within  that  time,  they  must  shift  for  themselves.  Soon 
the  roads  and  fields,  which  then  lay  deep  in  snow,  were  black- 
ened by  innumerable  multitudes  of  men,  women,  and  children 
flying  from  their  homes.  Many  died  of  cold  and  hunger  :  but 
enough  survived  to  fill  the  streets  of  all  the  cities  of  Europe 
with  lean  and  squalid  beggars,  who  had  once  been  thriving 
farmers  and  shopkeepers.  Meanwhile  the  work  of  destruction 
began.  The  flames  went  up  from  every  marketplace,  every 
hamlet,  every  parish  church,  every  country  seat,  within  the 
devoted  provinces.  The  fields  where  the  corn  had  been  sown 
were  ploughed  up.  The  orchards  were  hewn  down.  No  prom- 
ise of  a  harvest  was  left  on  the  fertile  plains  near  what  had 
once  been  Frankenthal.  Not  a  vine,  not  an  almond  tree,  was  to 
be  seen  on  the  slopes  of  the  sunny  hills  round  what  had  once 
been  Heidelberg.  No  respect  was  shown  to  palaces,  to  tem- 
ples, to  monasteries,  to  infirmaries,  to  beautiful  works  of  art, 
to  monuments  of  the  illustrious  dead.  The  farfamed  castle 
of  the  Elector  Palatine  was  turned  into  a  heap  of  ruins.  The 
adjoining  hospital  was  sacked.  The  provisions,  the  medicines, 
the  pallets  on  which  the  sick  lay  were  destroyed.  The  very 
stones  of  which  Manheim  had  been  built  were  flung  into  the 
Rhine.  The  magnificent  Cathedral  of  Spires  perished,  and  with 
it  the  marble  sepulchres  of  eight  Cassars.  The  coffins  were 


WILLIAM   AND   MARY.  121 

broken  open.  The  ashes  were  scattered  to  the  winds.*  Treves 
with  its  fair  bridge,  its  Roman  baths  and  amphitheatre,  its  ven- 
erable churches,  convents,  and  colleges,  was  doomed  to  the  same 
fate.  But,  before  this  last  crime  had  been  perpetrated,  Lewis 
was  recalled  to  a  better  mind  by  the  execrations  of  all  the  neigh- 
bouring nations,  by  the  silence  and  confusion  of  his  flatterers, 
and  by  the  expostulations  of  his  wife.  He  had  been  more  than 
two  years  secretly  married  to  Frances  de  Maintenon,  the  gov- 
erness of  his  natural  children.  It  would  be  hard  to  name  any 
woman  who,  with  so  little  romance  in  her  temper,  has  had  so 
much  in  her  life.  Her  early  years  had  been  passed  iii  poverty 
and  obscurity.  Her  first  husband  had  supported  himself  by  writ- 
ing burlesque  farces  and  poems.  When  she  attracted  the  notice 
of  her  sovereign,  she  could  no  longer  boast  of  youth  or  beauty  : 
but  she  possessed  in  an  extraordinary  degree  those  more  lasting 
charms,  which  men  of  sense,  whose  passions  age  has  tamed,  and 
whose  life  is  a  life  of  business  and  care,  prize  most  highly  in 
a  female  companion.  Her  character  was  such  as  has  been  well 
compared  to  that  soft  green  on  which  the  eye,  wearied  by  warm 
tints  and  glaring  lights,  reposes  with  pleasure.  A  just  under- 
standing ;  an  inexhaustible  yet  never  redundant  flow  of  rational, 
gentle,  and  sprightly  conversation ;  a  temper  of  which  the  se- 
renity was  never  for  a  moment  ruffled ;  a  tact  which  surpassed 
the  tact  of  her  sex  as  much  as  the  tact  of  her  sex  surpasses  the 
tact  of  ours  ;  such  were  the  qualities  which  made  the  widow  of 
a  buffoon  first  the  confidential  friend,  and  then  the  spouse,  of  the 
proudest  and  most  powerful  of  European  kings.  It  was  said 
that  Lewis  had  been  with  difficulty  prevented  by  the  arguments 
and  vehement  entreaties  of  Louvois  from  declaring  her  Queen 
of  France.  It  is  certain  that  she  regarded  Louvois  as  her  ene- 
my. Her  hatred  of  him,  cooperating  perhaps  with  better  feel- 
ings, induced  her  to  plead  the  cause  of  the  unhappy  people  of 

*  For  the  history  of  the  devastation  of  the  Palatinate,  see  the  Memoirs  of  La 
Fare,  Dangeau,  Madame  de  la  Fayette,  Villars,  and  Saint  Simon,  and  the  Monthly 
Mercuries  for  March  and  April  1689.  The  pamphlets  and  broadsides  are  too 
numerous  to  quote.  One  broadside,  entitled  "  A  true  Acco-mt  of  the  barbarous 
Cruelties  committed  by  the  French  in  the  Palatinate  in  January  and  February 
last,"  is  perhaps  the  most  remarkable. 


122  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

the  Rhine.  She  appealed  to  those  sentiments  of  compassion 
which,  though  weakened  by  many  corrupting  influences,  were 
not  altogether  extinct  in  her  husband's  mind,  and  to  those  sen- 
timents of  religion  which  had  too  often  impelled  him  to  cruelty, 
"but  which,  on  the  present  occasion,  were  on.theside  of  humanity. 
He  relented ;  and  Treves  was  spared.*  In  truth  he  could  hardly 
fail  to  perceive  that  he  had  committed  a  great  error.  The  de- 
vastation of  the  Palatinate,  while  it  had  not  in  any  sensible 
degree  lessened  the  power  of  his  enemies,  had  inflamed  their 
animosity,  and  had  furnished  them  with  inexhaustible  matter 
for  invective.  The  cry  of  vengeance  rose  on  every  side.  What- 
ever scruple  either  branch  of  the  House  of  Austria  might  have 
felt  about  coalescing  with  Protestants  was  completely  removed. 
It  was  in  vain  that  Lewis  accused  the  Emperor  and  the  Cath- 
olic King  of  having  betrayed  the  cause  of  the  Church ;  of 
having  allied  themselves  with  an  usurper  who  was  the  avowed 
champion  of  the  great  schism  ;  of  having  been  accessary  to  the 
foul  wrong  done  to  a  lawful  sovereign  who  was  guilty  of  no 
crime  but  zeal  for  the  true  religion.  It  was  in  vain  that  James 
sent  to  Vienna  and  Madrid  piteous  letters,  in  which  he  recount- 
ed his  misfortunes,  and  imolored  the  assistance  of  his  brother 
kings,  his  brethren  also  m  the  faith,  against  the  unnatural 
children  and  the  rebellious  subjects  who  had  driven  him  into 
exile.  There  was  little  difficulty  in  framing  a  plausible  an- 
swer both  to  the  reproaches  of  Lewis  and  to  the  supplications  of 
James.  Leopold  and  Charles  declared  that  they  had  not,  even 
for  purposes  of  just  selfdefence,  leagued  themselves  with  heretics, 
till  their  enemy  had,  for  purposes  of  unjust  aggression,  leagued 
himself  with  Mahometans.  Nor  was  this  the  worst.  The 
French  King,  not  content  with  assisting  the  Moslem  against 
the  Christians,  was  himself  treating  Christians  with  a  barbarity 
which  would  have  shocked  the  very  Moslem.  His  infidel  allies, 
to  do  them  justice,  had  not  perpetrated  on  the  Danube  such 
outrages  against  the  edifices  and  the  members  of  the  Holy  Cath- 
olic Church  as  he  who  called  himself  the  eldest  son  of  that 
Church  was  perpetrating  on  the  Rhine.  On  these  grounds,  the 
*  Memoirs  of  Saint  Simon. 


WILLIAM   AND   MART.  123 

princes  to  whom  James  had  appealed  replied  by  appealing,  with 
many  professions  of  good  will  and  compassion,  to  himself.  He 
was  surely  too  just  to  blame  them  for  thinking  that  it  was  their 
first  duty  to  defend  their  own  people  against  such  outrages  as 
had  turned  the  Palatinate  into  a  desert,  or  for  calling  in  the  aid 
of  Protestants  against  an  enemy  who  had  not  scrupled  to  call 
in  the  aid  of  Turks.* 

During  the  winter  and  the  earlier  part  of  the  spring,  the 
powers  hostile  to  France  were  gathering  their  strength  for  a 
great  effort,  and  were  in  constant  communication  with  one 
another.  As  the  season  for  military  operations  approached,  the 
solemn  appeals  of  injured  nations  to  the  God  of  battles  came 
forth  in  rapid  succession.  The  manifesto  of  the  Germanic  body 
appeared  in  February  ;  that  of  the  States  General  in  March  ; 
that  of  the  House  of  Brandenburg  in  April ;  and  that  of  Spain 
in  May.| 

Here,  as  soon  as  the  ceremony  of  the  coronation  was  over, 
the  House  of  Commons  determined  to  take  into  consideration 
the  late  proceedings  of  the  French  King.J  In  the  debate,  that 
hatred  of  the  powerful,  unscrupulous,  and  imperious  Lewis, 
which  had,  during  twenty  years  of  vassalage,  been  festering  in 
the  hearts  of  Englishmen,  broke  violently  forth.  He  was  called 
the  most  Christian  Turk,  the  most  Christian  ravager  of  Chris- 
tendom, the  most  Christian  barbarian  who  had  perpetrated  on 

*  I  will  quote  a  few  lines  from  Leopold's  letter  to  James  :  "  Ktinc  p.utem  quo 
loco  res  iiostne  Bint,  ut  Serenitati  vestrse  auxiliuni  prsestari  possit  a  nob  is,  qui 
non  Turcico  tantum  bello  implicit!,  sed  insuper  etiam  crudelissi::io  et  i::iqi;i3- 
Bimo  a  Gallis,  rerum  suarum,  ut  putabant,  in  Anglia  securis,  contra  datavn  fidem 
impediti  sumus,  ipsimet  Serenitati  vestne  judicandum  relinquimus.  .  .  .  Gr.lli 
non  tantum  in  nostrum  et  totius  Christianas  orbis  pemiciem  fcedilraga  anna  cum 
juratis  Sanctae  Crucis  hostibus  sociare  fas  sibi  ducunt ;  Bed  etiam  in  imperio, 
perfidiam  perfidia  cumulando,  urbes  deditioue  occupatas  contra  datani  fidem 
iinmensis  tributis  exhaurire,  exhaustas,  diripere,  direptas  funditus  e^scindere 
ant  flammisdelere,  palatia  principum  ab  omni  antiquitate  inter  saevissima  bel- 
lorum  incendia  intacta  servata  exurere,  templa  spoliare,  dedititios  in  servitutem 
more  apud  barbaros  tisitato  abducere,  denique  passim,  imprimis  vero  etiam  in 
Catholicorum  ditionibus,  alia  horrenda,  et  ipsam  Turcorum  tyrannidein  super- 
antia  immanitatis  et  saevitiae  exempla  edere  pro  ludohabent." 

t  See  the  London  Gazettes  of  Feb.  25,  March  11,  April  22,  May  2,  and  the 
Monthly  Mercuries.  Some  of  the  Declarations  will  be  found  iu  Dumont's  Corps 
Universel  Diplomatiqne. 

t  Commons'  Journals,  April  15, 16,  1689. 


124  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND.. 

Christians  outrages  of  which  his  iufidel  allies  would  have  been 
ashamed.*  A  committee,  consisting  chiefly  of  ardent  Whigs, 
was  appointed  to  prepare  an  address.  John  Hampden,  •  the 
most  ardent  Whig  among  them,  was  put  into  the  chair ;  and  he 
produced  a  composition  too  long,  too  rhetorical,  and  too  vitupera- 
tive, to  suit  the  lips  of  the  Speaker  or  the  ears  of  the  King. 
Invectives  against  Lewis  might  perhaps,  in  the  temper  in  which 
the  House  then  was,  have  passed  without  censure,  if  they  had 
not  been  accompanied  by  severe  reflections  on  the  character 
and  administration  of  Charles  the  Second,  whose  memory,  in 
spite  of  all  his  faults,  was  affectionately  cherished  by  the  Tories. 
There  were  some  very  intelligible  allusions  to  Charles's  dealings 
with  the  Court  at  Versailles,  and  to  the  foreign  woman  whom 
that  Court  had  sent  to  lie  like  a  snake  in  his  bosom.  The 
House  was  with  good  reason  dissatisfied.  The  address  was 
recommitted,  and,  having  been  made  more  concise,  and  less  de- 
clamatory and  acrimonious,  was  approved  and  presented. f 
William's  attention  was  called  to  the  wrongs  which  France  had 
done  to  him  and  to  his  kingdom  ;  and  he  was  assured  that, 
whenever  he  should  resort  to  arms  for  the  redress  of  those 
wrongs,  he  should  be  heartily  supported  by  his  people.  He 
thanked  the  Commons  warmly.  Ambition,  he  said,  should 
never  induce  him  to  draw  the  sword :  but  he  had  no  choice : 
France  had  already  attacked  England ;  and  it  was  necessary  to 
exercise  the  right  of  self-defence.  A  few  days  later  war  was 
proclaimed.  J 

Of  the  grounds  of  quarrel  alleged  by  the  Commons  in  their 
address,  and  by  the  King  in  his  manifesto,  the  most  serious  was* 
the  interference  of  Lewis  in  the  affairs  of  Ireland.  In  that 
country  great  events  had,  during  several  months,  followed  one 
another  in  rapid  succession.  Of  those  events  it  is  now  time  to 
relate  the  history,  a  history  dark  with  crime  and  sorrow,  yet 
full  of  interest  and  instruction. 

*  Oldmixon. 

t  Commons'  Journals,  April  19,  24,  26,  1689. 

$  The  declaration  is  dated  on  the  7th  of  May,  but  waa  not  published  In  the 
London  Gazette  till  the  13th. 


YTILLIAM  AND   MARY.  125 


CHAPTER  XII. 

WILLIAM  haJ  assumed,  together  with  the  title  of  King  of  Eng- 
land, the  title  of  King  of  Ireland.  For  all  our  jurists  then  re- 
garded Ireland  as  a  mere  colony,  more  important  indeed  than 
Massachusetts,  Virginia,  or  Jamaica,  but,  like  Massachusetts, 
Virginia,  and  Jamaica,  dependent  on  the  mother  country,  and 
bound  to  pay  allegiance  to  the  Sovereign  whom  the*  mother 
country  had  called  to  the  throne.* 

In  fact,  however,  the  Revolution  found  Ireland  emancipated 
from  the  dominion  of  the  English  colony.  As  early  as  the  year 
1GHG,  James  had  determined  to  make  that  island  a  place  of  arms 
which  might  overawe  Great  Britain,  and  a  place  of  refuge  where, 
if  any  disaster  happened  in  Great  Britain,  the  members  of  his 
Church  might  find  refuge.  With  this  view  he  had  exerted  all 
his  power  for  the  purpose  of  inverting  the  relation  between  the 
conquerors  and  the  aboriginal  population.  The  execution  of 
his  design  he  had  entrusted,  in  spite  of  the  remonstrances  of  his 
English  counsellors,  to  the  .Lord  Deputy  Tyrconnel.  In  the 
autumn  of  1688,  the  process  was  complete.  The  highest  offices 
in  the  state,  in  the  army,  and  in  the  Courts  of  Justice,  were, 
with  scarcely  an  exception,  filled  by  Papists.  A  pettifogger 
named  Alexander  Fitton,  who  had  been  detected  in  forgery,  who 
had  been  fined  for  misconduct  by  the  House  of  Lords  at  West- 
minster, who  had  been  many  years  in  prison,  and  who  was 
equally  deficient  in  legal  knowledge  and  in  the  natural  good 
sense  and  acuteness  by  which  the  want  of  legal  knowledge  has 
jometimes  been  supplied,  was  Lord  Chancellor.  His  single 
merit  was  that  he  had  apostatised  from  the  Protestant  religion ; 

*  The  general  opinion  of  the  English  on  this  (subject  is  clearly  expressed  in  a 
little  tract  entitled  "  Aphorisms  relating  to  the  Kingdom  of  Ireland,"  which  ap- 
peared during  the  vacancy  of  the  throne. 


126  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

and  this  merit  was  thought  sufficient  to  wash  out  even  the  stain 
of  his  Saxon  extraction.  He  soon  proved  himself  worthy  of 
the  confidence  of  his  patrons.  On  the  bench  of  justice  he  de- 
clared that  there  was  not  one  heretic  in  forty  thousand  who  was 
not  a  villain.  He  often,  after  hearing  a  cause  in  which  the 
interests  of  his  Church  were  concerned,  postponed  his  decision, 
for  the  purpose,  as  he  avowed,  of  consulting  his  spiritual  direc- 
tor, a  Spanish  priest,  well  read  doubtless  in  Escobar.*  Thomas 
Nugent,  a  Roman  Catholic  who  had  never  distinguished  him- 
self at  the  bar  except  by  his  brogue  and  his  blunders,  was 
Chief  Justice  of  the  King's  Bench. f  Stephen  Rice,  a  Roman 
Catholic,  whose  abilities  and  learning  were  not  disputed  even  by 
the  enemies  of  his  nation  and  religion,  but  whose  known  hostil- 
ity to  the  Act  of  Settlement  excited  the  most  painful  apprehen- 
sions in  the  minds  of  all  who  held  property  under  that  Act, 
was  Chief  Baron  of  the  Exchequer.  $  Richard  Nagle,  an  acute 
and  well  read  lawyer,  who  had  been  educated  in  a  Jesuit  col- 
lege, and  whose  prejudices  were  such  as  might  have  been  ex- 
pected from  his  education,  was  Attorney  General. § 

Keating,  a  highly  respectable  Protestant,  was  still  Chief 
Justice  of  the  Common  Pleas  :  but  two  Roman  Catholic  Judges 
sate  with  him.  It  ought  to  be  added  that  one  of  those  judges, 
Daly,  was  a  mau  of  sense,  moderation,  and  integrity.  The 
matters  however  which  came  before  the  Court  of  Common 
Pleas  were  not  of  great  moment.  Even  the  King's  Bench  was 
at  this  time  almost  deserted.  The  Court  of  Exchequer  over- 
flowed with  business ;  for  it  was  the  only  court  at  Dublin  from 
which  no  writ  of  error  lay  to  England,  and  consequently  the 
only  court  in  which  the  English  could  be  oppressed  and  pil- 
laged without  hope  of  redress.  Rice,  it  was  said,  had  declared 
that  they  should  have  from  him  exactly  what  the  law,  construed 
with  the  utmost  strictness,  gave  them,  and  nothing  more.  What, 

*  King's  State  of  the  Protestants  of  Ireland,  ii.  C.  and  iii.  3. 

t  King,  iii.  3.  Clarendon  in  a  letter  to  Rochester  (June  1,  1GS6),  calls  Nugent 
"  a  very  troublesome,  impertinent  creature." 

t  King,  iii.  3. 

§  King,  ii.  6,  iii.  3.  Clarendon  in  a  letter  to  Ormond  (Sept.  28,  16861,  speaks 
highly  of  Nagle'a  knowledge  nnd  ability,  but  in  the  Diary  (Jan.  31,  1GSC-7)  colls 
him  "  a  covetous,  ambitious  juan." 


WILLIAM   AKD    MARY.  1Z/ 

in  his  opinion,  the  law,  strictly  construed,  gave  them,  they  could 
easily  infer  from  a  saying  which,  before  he  became  a  Judge, 
was  often  in  his  mouth.  "  I  will  drive,"  he  used  to  say,  "  a 
coach  and  six  through  the  Act  of  Settlement."  He  now  car- 
ried his  threat  daily  into  execution.  The  cry  of  all  Protestants 
was  that  it  mattered  not  what  evidence  they  produced  before 
him ;  that,  when  their  titles  were  to  be  set  aside,  the  rankest 
forgeries,  the  most  infamous  witnesses,  were  sure  to  have  his 
countenance.  To  his  court  his  countrymen  came  in  multitudes 
with  writs  of  ejectment  and  writs  of  trespass.  In  his  court  the 
government  attacked  at  once  the  charters  of  all  the  cities  and 
boroughs  in  Ireland  ;  and  he  easily  found  pretexts  for  pronounc- 
ing all  those  charters  forfeited.  The  municipal  corporations, 
about  a  hundred  in  number,  had  been  instituted  to  be  the  strong- 
holds of  the  reformed  religion  and  of  the  English  interest,  and 
had  consequently  been  regarded  by  the  Irish  Roman  Catholics 
with  an  aversion  which  cannot  be  thought  unnatural  or  unrea- 
sonable. Had  those  bodies  been  remodelled  in  a  judicious  and 
impartial  manner,  the  irregularity  of  the  proceedings  by  which 
so  desirable  a  result  had  been  attained  might  have  been  par- 
doned. But  it  soon  appeared  that  one  exclusive  system  had 
been  swept  away  only  to  make  room  for  another.  The  boroughs 
were  subjected  to  the  absolute  authority  of  the  Crown.  Towns 
in  which  almost  every  householder  was  an  English  Protestant 
were  placed  under  the  government  of  Irish  Roman  Catholics. 
Many  of  the  new  Aldermen  had  never  even  seen  the  places 
over  whfch  they  were  appointed  to  bear  rule.  At  the  same 
time  the  Sheriffs,  to  whom  belonged  the  execution  of  writs  and 
the  nomination  of  juries,  were  selected  in  almost  every  instance 
from  the  caste  which  had  till  very  recently  been  excluded  from 
all  public  trust.  It  was  affirmed  that  some  of  these  important 
functionaries  had  been  burned  in  the  hand  for  theft.  Others 
had  been  servants  to  Protestants ;  and  the  Protestants  added, 
with  bitter  scorn,  that  it  was  fortunate  for  the  country  when 
this  was  the  case  ;  for  that  a  menial  who  had  cleaned  the  plate 
and  rubbed  down  the  horse  of  an  English  gentleman  might  pass 
for  a  civilised  being,  when  compared  with  many  of  the  native 


128  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAN1J. 

aristocracy  whoso  lives  had  been  spent  in  coshering  or  maraud- 
ing. To  such  Sheriffs  no  colonist,  even  if  he  had  been  so 
strangely  fortunate  as  to  obtain  a  judgment,  dared  to  entrust 
an  execution.* 

Thus  the  civil  power  had,  in  the  space  of  a  few  months, 
been  transferred  from  the  Saxon  to  the  Celtic  population.  The 
transfer  of  the  military  power  had  been  not  less  complete. 
The  army,  which,  under  the  command  of  Ormoud,  had  been 
the  chief  safeguard  of  the  English  ascendency,  had  ceased  to 
exist.  Whole  regiments  had  been  dissolved  and  reconstructed. 
Six  thousand  Protestant  veterans,  deprived  of  their  bread, 
were  brooding  in  retirement  over  their  wrongs,  or  had  crossed 
the  sea  and  joined  the  standard  of  William.  Their  place  was 
supplied  by  men  who  had  long  suffered  oppression,  and  who, 
finding  themselves  suddenly  transformed  from  slaves  into  mas- 
ters, were  impatient  to  pay  back,  with  accumulated  usury,  the 
heavy  debt  of  injuries  and  insults.  The  new  soldiers,  it  was 
said,  never  passed  an  Englishman  without  cursing  him  and  call- 
ing him  by  some  foul  name.  They  were  the  terror  of  every 
Protestant  innkeeper ;  for,  from  the  moment  when  they  came 
under  his  roof,  they  ate  and  drank  everything  :  they  paid  for 
nothing ;  and  by  their  rude  swaggering  they  scared  more  re- 
spectable guests  from  his  door.f 

Such  was  the  state  of  Ireland  when  the  Prince  of  Orange 
landed  at  Torbay.  From  that  time  every  packet  which  arrived 
at  Dublin  brought  tidings,  such  as*  could  not  but  increase  the 
mutual  fear  and  loathing  of  the  hostile  races.  The*  colonist, 
who,  after  long  enjoying  and  abusing  power,  had  now  tasted  for 

*  King,  ii.  5, 1,  Hi.  3,  5  ;  A  Short  View  of  the  Methods  made  use  of  in  Ireland 
for  the  Supervision  and  Destruction  of  the  Protestant  Religion  and  Interests,  by 
a  Clergyman  lately  escaped  from  thence,  licensed  October  17,  1689. 

t  King,  iii.  2.  I  cannot  find  that  Charles  Leslie,  who  was  zealous  on  the  other 
side,  has,  in  his  answer  to  King,  contradicted  any  of  these  facts.  Indeed  Leslie 
gives  up  Tyrconnel's  administration.  "  I  desire  to  obviate  one  objection  which  I 
know  will  be  made,  as  if  I  were  about  wholly  to  vindicate  all  that  the  Lord  Tyr- 
connel  and  other  of  King  James's  ministers  have  done  in  Ireland,  especially 
before  this  revolution  began,  and  which  most  of  anything  brought  it  on.  No  ;  I 
am  far  from  it.  I  am  sensible  that  their  carriage  in  many  particulars  gave 
greater  occasion  to  King  James's  enemies  than  all  the  other  maladministrations 
which  were  charged  upon  his  government." — Leslie's  Answer  to  King,  ICSli. 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  129 

a  moment  the  bitterness  of  servitude,  the  native,  who,  having 
drunk  to  the  dregs  all  the  bitterness  of  servitude,  had  at  length 
for  a  moment  enjoyed  and  abused  power,  were  alike  sensible 
that  a  great  crisis,  a  crisis  like  that  of  1641,  was  at  hand.  The 
majority  impatiently  expected  Phelim  O'Neil  to  revive  in  Tyr- 
connel.  The  minority  saw  in  William  a  second  Oliver. 

On  which  side  the  first  blow  was  struck  was  a  question 
which  Williamites  and  Jacobites  afterwards  debuted  with  much 
asperity.  But  no  question  could  be  more  idle.  History  must 
do  to  both  parties  the  justice  which  neither  has  ever  done  to 
the  other,  and  must  admit  that  both  had  fair  pleas  and  cruel 
provocations.  Both  had  been  placed,  by  a  fate  for  which  neither 
was  answerable,  in  such  a  situation  that,  human  nature  being 
what  it  is,  they  could  not  but  regard  each  other  with  enmity. 
A  king,  who  perhaps  might  have  reconciled  them,  had,  year 
after  year,  systematically  employed  his  whole  power  for  the 
purpose  of  inflaming  their  enmity  to  madness.  It  was  now 
impossible  to  establish  in  Ireland  a  just  and  beneficent  govern- 
ment, a  government  which  should  know  no  distinction  of  race 
or  of  sect,  a  government  which,  while  strictly  respecting  the 
rights  guaranteed  by  law  to  the  new  landowners,  should  allevi- 
ate by  a  judicious  liberality,  the  misfortunes  of  the  ancient 
gentry.  The  opportunity  had  passed  away ;  compromise  had 
become  impossible :  the  two  infuriated  castes  were  alike  con- 
vinced that  it  was  necessary  to  oppress  or  to  be  oppressed,  and 
that  there  could  be  no  safety  but  in  victory,  vengeance,  and 
dominion.  They  agreed  only  in  spurning  out  of  the  way  every 
mediator  who  sought  to  reconcile  them. 

During  some  weeks  there  were  outrages,  insults,  evil  reports, 
violent  panics,  the  natural  preludes  of  the  terrible  conflict  which 
was  at  hand.  A  rumour  spread  over  the  whole  island  that,  on 
the  ninth  of  December,  there  would  be  a  general  massacre  of  the 
Englishry.  Tyrconnel  sent  for  the  chief  Protestants  of  Dublin 
to  the  Castle,  and,  with  his  usual  energy  of  diction,  invoked  on 
himself  all  the  vengeance  of  heaven,  if  the  report  was  not  a 
cursed,  a  blasted,  a  con  founded  lie.  It  was  said  that,  in  his  rage 
at  finding  his  oaths  ineffectual,  he  pulled  off  his  hat  and  wig,  and 
VOL.  III.— 9 


180  HISTOKY    OF    ENGLAND. 

flung  them  into  the  fire.*  But  lying  Dick  Talbot  was  so  well 
known  that  his  imprecations  and  gesticulations  only  strengthened 
the  apprehension  which  they  were  meant  to  allay.  Ever  since 
the  recall  of  Clarendon  there  had  been  a  large  emigration  of 
timid  and  quiet  people  from  the  Irish  ports  to  England.  That 
emigration  now  went  on  faster  than  ever.  It  was  not  easy  to 
obtain  a  passage  on  board  of  a  well  built  or  commodious  vessel. 
But  many  persons,  made  bold  by  excess  of  fear,  and  choosing 
rather  to  trust  the  winds  and  waves  than  the  exasperated  Irishry, 
ventured  to  encounter  all  the  dangers  of  St.  George's  Channel 
and  of  the  Welsh  coast  in  open  boats  and  in  the  depth  of  win- 
ter. The  English  who  remained  began,  in  almost  every  county, 
to  draw  close  together.  Every  large  country  house  became  a 
fortress.  Every  visitor  who  arrived  after  nightfall  was  chal- 
lenged from  a  loophole  or  from  a  barricaded  window ;  and  if  he 
attempted  to  enter  without  passwords  and  explanations,  a  blun- 
derbuss was  presented  to  him.  On  the  dreaded  night  of  the  ninth 
of  December,  there  was  scarcely  one  Protestant  mansion  from 
the  Giant's  Causeway  to  Bantry  Bay  in  which  armed  men  were 
not  watching  and  lights  burning  from  the  early  sunset  to  the 
late  sunrise.f 

A  minute  account  of  what  passed  in  one  district  at  this  time 
has  come  down  to  us,  and  well  illustrates  the  general  state  of 
the  kingdom.  The  south-western  part  of  Kerry  is  now  well 
known  as  the  most  beautiful  tract  in  the  British  isles.  The 
mountains,  the  glens,  the  capes  stretching  far  into  the  Atlantic, 
the  crags  on  which  the  eagles  build,  the  rivulets  brawling  down 
rocky  passes,  the  lakes  overhung  by  groves  in  which  the  wild  deer 
find  covert,  attract  every  summer  crowds  of  wanderers  sated  with 
the  business  and  the  pleasures  of  great  cities.  The  beauties  of 
that  country  are  indeed  too  often  hidden  in  the  mist  and  rain 
which  the  west  wind  brings  up  from  a  boundless  ocean.  But, 
on  the  rare  days  when  the  sun  shines  out  in  all  his  glory,  the 

*  A  True  and  Impartial  Account  of  the  most  material  Passages  in  Ireland 
since  December  1C88,  by  a  Gentleman  who  was  an  Eye-witness  ;  licensed  July  £2 
1689. 

t  A  True  and  Impartial  Account,  1CS9 ;  Leslie's  Answer  to  King,  1C92. 


WILLIAM   AND   MARY. 

landscape  has  a  freshness  and  a  warmth  of  colouring  seldom 
found  in  our  latitude.  The  myrtle  loves  the  soil.  The  arbutus 
thrives  better  than  even  on  the  sunny  shore  of  Calabria.*  The 
turf  is  of  livelier  hue  than  elsewhere  :  the  hills  glow  with  a 
richer  purple  :  the  varnish  of  the  holly  and  ivy  is  more  glossy  ; 
and  berries  of  a  brighter  red  peep  through  foliage  of  a  brighter 
green.  But  during  the  greater  part  of  the  seventeenth  century 
this  paradise  was  as  little  known  to  the  civilised  world  as  Spitz- 
bergen  or  Greenland.  If  ever  it  was  mentioned,  it  was  mention- 
ed as  a  horrible  desert,  a  chaos  of  bogs,  thickets,  and  precipices, 
whore  the  she  wolf  still  littered,  and  where  some  half  naked  sav- 
ages, who  could  not  speak  a  word  of  English,  made  themselves 
burrows  in  the  mud,  and  lived  on  roots  and  sour  milk.f 

At  length,  in  the  year  1 670,  the  benevolent  and  enlightened 
Sir  William  Petty  determined  to  form  an  English  settlement  in 
this  wild  district.  He  possessed  a  large  domain  there,  which 
has  descended  to  a  posterity  worthy  of  such  an  ancestor.  On 
the  improvement  of  that  domain,  he  expended,  it  was  said,  not 
less  than  ten  thousand  pounds.  The  little  town  which  he 
founded,  named  from  the  bay  of  Kenmare,  stood  at  the  head  of 
that  bay  under  a  mountain  ridge,  on  the  summit  of  which  travel- 
lers now  stop  to  gaze  upon  the  loveliest  of  the  three  lakes  of 
Killarney.  Scarcely  any  village,  built  by  an  enterprising  band 
of  New  Englanders,  far  from  the  dwellings  of  their  countrymen, 
in  the  midst  of  the  hunting  grounds  cf  the  Red  Indians,  was 

*  There  have  been  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Killarney  specimens  of  the  arbutus 
thirty  feet  high  and  four  feet  and  a  half  round.  See  the  Philosophical  Trans- 
actions, 227. 

1  In  a  very  full  account  of  the  British  isles  published  at  Nuremberg  in  1600, 
Kerry  is  described  as  "  an  vielen  Orten  unwegfam  und  voller  Walder  und  Ge- 
bi'trge."  Wolves  still  infested  Ireland.  "  Kein  schadlich  Thier  ist  da,  ansser- 
halb  Wolff  und  Filches."  So  late  as  the  year  1710  money  was  levied  on  present- 
ments of  the  Grand  Jury  of  Kerry  for  the  destruction  of  wolves  in  that  county. 
See  Smith's  Ancient  and  Modern  State  of  the  County  of  Kerry,  175*i.  I  do  not 
know  that  I  have  ever  met  with  a  better  book  of  the  kind  and  of  the  size.  In  a 
poem  published  as  late  as  1719,  and  entitled  Macdermot,  or  the  Irish  Fortune 
Hunter,  in  six  cantos,  wolfhuntinj  and  wolfspearinj;  are  represented  as  common 
sports  in  Munster.  In  William's  reijrn  Ireland  was  sometimes  called  by  the 
ni'-kn-iuic  of  Wolfland.  Thus  in  a  poem  on  the  battle  of  La  Hogue,  called  Advice 
to  a  Painter,  the  terror  of  the  Irish  army  is  thus  described  : 

"  A  chilling  damp 
And  Wolflftnd  howl  runs  thro'  the  ruing  camp." 


132  HISTORY   OP   ENGLAND. 

more  completely  out  of  the  pale  of  civilization  than  Kenmare. 
Between  Petty's  settlement  and  the  nearest  English  habitation 
the  journey  by  land  was  of  two  days  through  a  wild  and  danger- 
ous country.  Yet  the  place  prospered.  Forty-two  houses  were 
erected.  The  population  amounted  to  a  hundred  and  eighty.  The 
land  round  the  town  was  well  cultivated.  The  cattle  were  numer- 
ous. Two  small  barks  were  employed  in  fishing  and  trading  along 
the  coast.  The  supply  of  herrings,  pilchards,  mackerel,  and  salmon 
was  plentiful,  and  would  have  been  still  more  plentiful,  had  not  the 
beach  been,  in  the  finest  part  of  the  year,  covered  by  multitudes  of 
seals,  which  preyed  on  the  fish  of  the  bay.  Yet  the  seal  was  not  an 
unwelcome  visitor  :  his  fur  was  valuable,  and  his  oil  supplied 
light  through  the  long  nights  of  winter.  An  attempt  was  made 
with  great  success  to  set  up  iron  works.  It  was  not  yet  the 
practice  to  employ  coal  for  the  purpose  of  smelting  ;  and  the 
manufacturers  of  Kent  and  Sussex  had  much  difficulty  in  pro- 
curing timber  at  a  reasonable  price.  The  neighbourhood  of  Ken- 
mare  was  then  richly  wooded  ;  and  Petty  found  it  a  gainful 
speculation  to  send  ore  thither.  The  lovers  of  the  picturesque 
still  regret  the  woods  of  oak  and  arbutus  which  were  cut  down 
to  feed  his  furnaces.  Another  scheme  had  occurred  to  his  active 
and  intelligent  mind.  Some  of  the  neighbouring  islands  abound- 
ed with  variegated  marble,  red  and  white,  purple  and  green. 
Petty  well  knew*at  what  cost  the  ancient  Romans  had  decorated 
their  baths  and  temples  with  many  coloured  columns  hewn  from 
Laconian  and  African  quarries ;  and  he  seems  to  have  indulged 
the  hope  that  the  rocks  of  his  wild  domain  in  Kerry  might  fur- 
nish embellishments  to  the  mansions  of  Saint  James's  Square, 
and  to  the  choir  of  Saint  Paul's  Cathedral.* 

From  the  first,  the  settlers  had  found  that  they  must  be  pre- 
pared to  exercise  the  right  of  selfdefence  to  an  extent  which 
would  have  been  unnecessary  and  unjustifiable  in  a  well  govern- 
ed country.  The  law  was  altogether  without  force  in  the  high- 
lands which  lie  on  the  south  of  the  vale  of  Tralee.  No  officer  of 
justice  willingly  ventured  into  those  parts.  One  pursuivant  who 
in  1680  attempted  to  execute  a  warrant  there  was  murdered. 

*  Smith's  Ancient  and  Modern  State  of  Kerry. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  133 

The  people  of  Kenmare  seem  however  to  have  been  suffi- 
ciently secured  by  their  union,  their  intelligence,  and  their  spirit, 
till  the  close  of  the  year  1688.  Then  at  length  the  effects  of 
the  policy  of  Tyrcounel  began  to  be  felt  even  in  that  remote 
corner  of  Ireland.  In  the  eyes  of  the  peasantry  of  Munster  the 
colonists  were  aliens  and  heretics.  The  buildings,  the  boats,  the 
machines,  the  granaries,  the  dairies,  the  furnaces,  were  doubtless 
contemplated  by  the  native  race  with  that  mingled  envy  and  con- 
tempt with  which  the  ignorant  naturally  regard  the  triumphs  of 
knowledge.  Nor  is  it  at  all  improbable  that  the  emigrants  had 
been  guilty  of  those  faults  from  which  civilized  men  who  settle 
among  an  uncivilized  people  are  rarely  free.  The  power  derived 
from  superior  intelligence  had,  we  may  easily  believe,  been 
sometimes  displayed  with  insolence,  and  sometimes  exerted  with 
injustice.  Now  therefore,  when  the  news  spread  from  altar  to 
altar  and  from  cabin  to  cabin,  that  the  strangers  were  to  be 
driven  out,  and  that  their  houses  and  lands  were  to  be  given  as 
a  booty  to  the  children  of  the  soil,  a  predatory  war  commenced. 
Plunderers  thirty,  forty,  seventy  in  a  troop,  prowled  round  the 
town,  some  with  firearms,  some  with  pikes.  The  barns  were 
robbed.  The  horses  were  stolen.  In  one  foray  a  hundred  and 
forty  cattle  were  swept  away  and  driven  off  through  the  ravines 
of  Glengariff.  In  one  night  six  dwellings  were  broke  open  and 
pillaged.  At  last  the  colonists,  driven  to  extremity,  resolved  to 
die  like  men  rather  than  be  murdered  in  their  beds.  The  house 
built  by  Petty  for  his  agent  was  the  largest  in  the  place.  It 
stood  on  a  rocky  peninsula  round  which  the  waves  of  the  bay 
broke.  Here  the  whole  population  assembled,  seventy-five 
fighting  men,  with  about  a  hundred  women  and  children.  They 
had  among  them  sixty  firelocks,  and  as  many  pikes  and  swords. 
Round  the  agent's  house  they  threw  up  with  great  speed  a  wall 
of  turf  fourteen  feet  in  height  and  twelve  in  thickness.  The  space 
enclosed  was  about  half  an  acre.  "Within  this  rampart  all  the 
arms,  the  ammunition,  and  the  provisions  of  the  settlement  were 
collected,  and  several  huts  of  thin  plank  were  built.  When 
these  preparations  were  completed,  the  men  of  Kenmare  began 
to  make  vigorous  reprisals  on  their  Irish  neighbours,  seized  rob- 


134  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

bers,  recovered  stolen  property,  and  continued  during  some  weeks 
to  act  in  all  things  as  an  independent  commonwealth.  The  gov- 
ernment was  carried  on  by  elective  officers  to  whom  every  mem- 
ber of  the  society  swore  fidelity  on  the  Holy  Gospels.* 

While  the  people  of  the  small  town  of  Kenmare  were  thus 
bestirring  themselves,  similar  preparations  for  defence  were 
made  by  larger  communities  on  a  larger  scale.  Great  numbers 
of  gentlemen  and  yeomen  quitted  the  open  country,  and  repaired 
to  those  towns  which  had  been  founded  and  incorporated  for 
the  purpose  of  bridling  the  native  population,  and  which,  though 
recently  placed  under  the  government  of  Roman  Catholic  magis- 
trates, were  still  inhabited  chiefly  by  Protestants.  A  consid- 
erable body  of  armed  colonists  mustered  at  Sligo,  another  at 
Charleville,  a  third  at  Mallow,  a  fourth  still  more  formidable 
at  Bandou.t  But  the  principal  strongholds  of  the  Englishry 
during  this  evil  time  were  Enniskillen  and  Londonderry. 

Enniskillen, though  the  capital  of  the  county  of  Fermanagh, 
was  then  merely  a  village.  It  was  built  on  an  island  surround- 
ed by  the  river  which  joins  the  two  beautiful  sheets  of  water 
known  by  the  common  name  of  Lough  Erne.  The  stream  and 
both  the  lakes  were  overhung  on  every  side  by  natural  forests. 
Enniskillen  consisted  of  about  eighty  dwellings  clustering  round 
an  ancient  castle.  The  inhabitants  were,  with  scarcely  an  ex- 
ception, Protestants,  and  boasted  that  their  town  had  been  true 
to  the  Protestant  cause  through  the  terrible  rebellion  which 
broke  out  in  1G41.  Early  in  December  they  received  from 
Dublin  an  intimation  that  two  companies  of  Popish  infantry 
were  to  be  immediately  quartered  on  them.  The  alarm  of  the 
little  community  was  great,  and  the  greater  because  it  was  known 
that  a  preaching  friar  had  been  exerting  himself  to  inflame  the 
Irish  population  of  the  neighbourhood  against  the  heretics.  A 
daring  resolution  was  taken.  Come  what  might,  the  troops 
should  not  be  admitted.  Yet  the  means  of  defence  were  slen- 
der. Not  ten  pounds  of  powder,  not  twenty  firelocks  fit  for  use, 

*  Exact  Relation  of  the  Persecutions,  Robberies  and  Losses,  sustained  by  the 
Protestants  of  Kilmare  in  Ireland,  1689 ;  Smith's  Ancient  and  Modern  State  of 
Kerry,  1756. 

t  Ireland's  Lamentation,  licensed  May  18, 1689. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  135 

could  be  collected  within  the  walls.  Messengers  were  sent  with 
pressing  letters  to  summon  the  Protestant  gentry  of  the  vicinage 
to  the  rescue  :  and  the  summons  was  gallantly  obeyed.  In  a 
few  hours  two  hundred  foot  and  a  hundred  and  fifty  horse  had 
assembled.  Tyrconnel's  soldiers  were  already  at  hand'.  They 
brought  with  them  a  considerable  supply  of  arms  to  be  distributed 
among  the  peasantry.  The  peasantry  greeted  the  royal  standard 
with  delight,  and  accompanied  the  march  in  great  numbers. 
The  townsmen  and  their  allies,  instead  of  waiting  to  be  attacked, 
came  boldly  forth  to  encounter  the  intruders.  The  officers  of 
James  had  expected  no  resistance.  They  were  confounded 
when  they  saw  confronting  them  a  column  of  foot,  flanked  by  a 
large  body  of  mounted  gentlemen  and  yeomen.  The  crowd  of 
camp  followers  ran  away  in  terror.  The  soldiers  made  a  retreat 
so  precipitate  that  it  might  be  called  a  flight,  and  scarcely  halted 
till  they  were  thirty  miles  off  at  Cavan.* 

The  Protestants,  elated  by  this  easy  victory,  proceeded  to 
make  arrangements  for  the  government  and  defence  of  Ennis- 
killen  and  of  the  surrounding  country.  Gustavus  Hamilton,  a 
gentleman  who  had  served  in  the  army,  but  who  had  recently 
been  deprived  of  his  commission  by  Tyrconnel,  and  had  since 
been  living  on  an  estate  in  Fermanagh,  was  appointed  Governor, 
and  took  up  his  residence  iu  the  castle.  Trusty  men  were 
enlisted  and  armed  with  great  expedition.  As  there  was  a 
scarcity  of  swords  and  pikes,  smiths  were  employed  to  make 
weapons  by  fastening  scythes  on  poles.  All  the  country  houses 
round  Lough  Erne  were  turned  into  garrisons.  No  Papist  was 
suffered  to  be  at  large  in  the  town  ;  and  the  friar  who  was  ac- 
cused of  exerting  his  eloquence  against  the  Englishrywas  thrown 
into  prison. f 

The  other  great  fastness  of  Protestantism  was  a  place  of  more 
importance.  Eighty  years  before,  during  the  troubles  caused 

*  A  True  Relation  of  the  Actions  of  the  Inniskilling  men,  by  Andrew  Hamil- 
ton, Rector  of  Kilskerrie,  and  one  of  the  Prebends  of  the  Diocese  of  Clogher,  an 
Eye-witness  thereof  and  Actor  therein,  licensed  Jan.  15,  1689-90  ;  A  Further  Im- 
parti'il  Account  of  ths  Actions  of  the  Inniskilling  men,  by  Captain  William  Mao 
Comiick,  one  of  the  first  that  took  up  Arms,  16E1. 

t  Hamiltou's  True  Itelation  ,  Mac  Corinick's  Further  Impartial  Account. 


136  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

by  the  last  struggle  of  the  houses  of  O'Neil  and  O'Donnell 
against  the  authority  of  James  the  First,  the  ancient  city  of 
Derry  had  been  surprised  by  one  of  the  native  chiefs  :  the  in- 
habitants had  been  slaughtered,  and  the  houses  reduced  to  ashes. 
The  insurgents  were  speedily  put  down  and  punished  :  the 
government  resolved  to  restore  the  ruined  town :  the  Lord 
Mayor,  Aldermen,  and  Common  Council  of  London  were  invited 
to  assist  in  the  work  ;  and  King  James  the  First  made  over  to 
them  in  their  corporate  capacity  the  ground  covered  by  the 
rains  of  the  old  Derry,  and  about  six  thousand  acres  in  the 
neighbourhood.* 

This  country,  then  uncultivated  and  uninhabited,  is  now 
enriched  by  industry,  embellished  by  taste,  and  pleasing  even  to 
eyes  accustomed  to  the  well  tilled  fields  and  stately  manor 
houses  of  England.  A  new  city  soon  arose  which,  on  account  of 
its  connection  with  the  capital  of  the  empire,  was  called  London- 
derry. The  buildings  covered  the  summit  and  slope  of  a  hill 
which  overlooked  the  broad  stream  of  the  Foyle,  then  whitened 
by  vast  flocks  of  wild  swans. f  On  the  highest  ground  stood 
the  Cathedral,  a  church  which,  though  erected  when  the  secret 
of  Gothic  architecture  was  lost,  and  though  ill  qualified  to  sustain 
a  comparison  with  the  awful  temples  of  the  middle  ages,  is  not 
without  grace  and  dignity.  Near  the  Cathedral  rose  the  Palace 
of  the  Bishop,  whose  see  was  one  of  the  most  valuable  in  Ireland. 
The  city  was  in  form  nearly  an  ellipse  ;  and  the  principal  streets 
formed  a  cross,  the  arms  of  which  met  in  a  square  called  the 
Diamond.  The  original  houses  have  been  either  rebuilt  or  so 
much  repaired  that  their  ancient  character  can  no  longer  be 
traced  ;  but  many  of  them  were  standing  within  living  memory. 
They  were  in  general  two  stories  in  height;  and  some  of  them 
had  stone  staircases  on  the  outside.  The  dwellings  were  encom- 
passed by  a  wall  of  which  the  whole  circumference  was  little  less 
than  a  mile.  On  the  bastions  were  planted  culverins  and  sakers 
presented  by  the  wealthy  guilds  of  London  to  the  colony.  On 

*  Concise  View  of  the  Irish  Society,  1822  ;  Mr.  Heath's  interesting  Account  of 
the  Worshipful  Company  of  Grocers,  Appendix  17. 

i  The  Interest  of  England  in  the  Preservation  of  Ireland,  licensed  July  17, 
1689. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  137 

some  of  these  ancient  guns,  which  have  done  memorable  service 
to  a  great  cause,  the  devices  of  the  Fishmongers'  Company,  of 
the  Vintners'  Company,  and  of  the  Merchant  Tailors'  Company 
are  still  discernible.* 

The  inhabitants  were  Protestants  of  Anglosaxon  blood.  They 
were  indeed  not  all  of  one  country  or  of  one  church  :  but  Eng- 
lishmen and  Scotchmen,  Episcopalians  and  Presbyterians,  seem 
to  have  generally  lived  together  in  friendship,  a  friendship  which 
is  sufficiently  explained  by  their  common  antipathy  to  the  Irish 
race  and  to  the  Popish  religion.  During  the  rebellion  of  1641, 
Londonderry  had  resolutely  held  out  against  tire  native  chieftains, 
and  had  been  repeatedly  besieged  in  vaiu.f  Since  the  Restora- 
tion the  city  had  prospered.  The  Foyle,  when  the  tide  was  high, 
brought  up  ships  of  large  burden  to  the  quay.  The  fisheries 
throve  greatly.  The  nets,  it  was  said,  were  sometimes  so  full 
that  it  was  necessary  to  fling  back  multitudes  of  fish  into  the 
waves.  The  quantity  of  salmon  caught  annually  was  estimated 
at  eleven  hundred  thousand  pounds'  weight,  t 

The  people  of  Londonderry  shared  in  the  alarm  which, 
towards  the  close  of  the  year  1688,  was  general  among  the 
Protestants  settled  in  Ireland.  It  was  known  that  the  aboriginal 
peasantry  of  the  neighbourhood  were  laying  in  pikes  and  knives. 
Priests  had  been  haranguing  in  a  style  of  which,  it  must  be 
owned,  the  Puritan  part  of  the  Anglosaxon  colony  had  little  right 
to  complain,  about  the  slaughter  of  the  Amalekites,  and  the 
judgments  which  Saul  had  brought  on  himself  by  sparing  one 
of  the  proscribed  race.  Rumours  from  various  quarters  and 
anonymous  letters  in  various  hands  agreed  in  naming  the  ninth 
of  December  as  the  day  fixed  for  the  extirpation  of  the  stran- 
gers. While  the  minds  of  the  citizens  were  agitated  by  these 
reports,  news  came  that  a  regiment  of  twelve  hundred  Papists, 
commanded  by  a  Papist,  Alexander  Macdonnell,  Earl  of  Antrim, 
had  received  orders  from  the  Lord  Deputy  to  occupy  London- 

*  These  things  I  observed  or  learned  on  the  spot. 

+  Tho  best  account  that  I  have  seen  of  what  passed  in  Londonderry  during 
the  war  which  began  in  1641  is  in  Dr.  Reid's  History  of  the  Presbyterian  Church 
in  Ireland. 

t  The  Interest  of  England  in  the  Preservation  of  Ireland  ;  1689. 


138  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

deny,  and  was  already  on  the  march  from  Coleraine.  The 
consternation  was  extreme.  Some  were  for  closing  the  gates 
and  resisting ;  some  for  submitting  ;  some  for  temporising.  The 
corporation  had,  like  the  other  corporations  of  Ireland,  been 
remodelled.  The  magistrates  were  men  of  low  station  and 
character.  Among  them  was  'only  one  person  of  Anglosaxon 
extraction  ;  and  he  had  turned  Papist.  In  such  rulers  the 
^habitants  could  place  no  confidence.*  The  Bishop,  Ezekiel 
Hopkins,  resolutely  adhered  to  the  political  doctrines  which  he 
had  preached  during  many  years,  and  exhorted  his  flock  to  go 
patiently  to  the  slaughter  rather  then  incur  the  guilt  of  disobeying 
the  Lord's  Anointed. f  Antrim  was  meanwhile  drawing 
nearer  and  nearer.  At  length  the  citizens  saw  from  the  walls 
his  troops  arrayed  on  the  opposite  shore  of  the  Foyle.  There 
was  then  no  bridge  ;  but  there  was  a  ferry  which  kept  up  a 
constant  communication  between  the  two  banks  of  the  river  ; 
and  by  this  ferry  a  detachment  from  Antrim's  regiment  crossed. 
The  officers  presented  themselves  at  the  gate,  produced  a 
warrant  directed  to  the  Mayor  and  Sheriffs,  and  demanded 
admittance  and  quarters  for  His  Majesty's  soldiers. 

Just  at  this  moment  thirteen  young  apprentices,  most  of 
whom  appear,  from  their  names,  to  have  been  of  Scottish  birth 
or  descent,  flew  to  the  guard  room,  armed  themselves,  seized  the 
keys  of  the  city,  rushed  to  the  Ferry  Gate,  closed  it  in  the  face 
of  the  King's  officers,  and  let  down  the  portcullis.  James  Mori- 
son,  a  citizen  more  advanced  in  years,  addressed  the  intruders 

*  My  authority  for  this  unfavourable  account  of  the  corporation  is  an  epic 
poem  entitled  the  Londeriad.  This  extraordinary  work  must  have  been  written 
very  soon  after  the  events  to  wliich.it  relates  ;  for  it  is  dedicated  to  Robert  Roch- 
fort.  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons  ;  and  Eochfort  was  Speaker  from  1695  to 
1009.  The  poet  had  no  invention  ;  he  had  evidently  a  minute  knowledge  of  the 
city  which  he  celebrated ;  and  his  doggerel  is  consequently  not  without  historical 
value.  He  says : 

"  For  burgesses  and  freemen  they  had  chose 
Broguemakers,  butchers,  raps,  and  such  as  those  : 
In  all  the  corporation  not  a  man 
Of  British  parents,  except  Buchanan." 
fhis  Buchanan  is  afterwards  described 

"  A  knave  all  o'er  : 
For  he  had  learned  to  tell  his  beads  before." 

t  See  a  sermon  preached  by  Mm  at  Dublin  on  Jan.  31,  1669.  The  text  is 
"Submit  yourselves  to  every  ordinance  of  man  for  the  Lord's  sake." 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  139 

from  the  top  of  the  wall  and  advised  them  to  be  gone.  They 
stood  in  consultation  before  the  gate  till  they  heard  him  cry, 
"  Bring  a  great  gun  this  way  "  They  then  thought  it  time  to 
get  beyond  the  range  of  shot.  They  retreated,  reembarked, 
and  rejoined  their  comrades  on  the  other  side  of  the  river.  The 
flame  had  already  spread.  The  whole  city  was  up.  The  other 
gates  were  secured.  Sentinels  paced  the  ramparts  everywhere. 
The  magazines  were  opened.  Muskets  and  gunpowder  were  dis- 
tributed. Messengers  were  sent,  under  cover  of  the  following 
night,  to  the  Protestant  gentlemen  of  the  neighbouring  counties. 
The  bishop  expostulated  in  vain.  It  is  indeed  probable  that  the  ve- 
hement and  daring  young  Scotchmen  who  had  taken  the  lead  on 
this  occasion  had  little  respect  for  his  office.  One  of  them  broke 
in  on  a  discourse  with  which  he  interrupted  the  military  prepara- 
tions by  exclaiming,  "A  good  sermon,  my  lord ;  a  very  good 
sermon  :  but  we  have  not  time  to  hear  it  just  now."  * 

The  Protestants  of  the  neighbourhood  promptly  obeyed  the 
summons  of  Londonderry.  Within  forty-eight  hours,  hundreds 
of  horse  and  foot  came  by  various  roads  to  the  city.  Antrim, 
not  thinking  himself  strong  enough  to  risk  an  attack,  or  not  dis- 
posed to  take  on  himself  the  responsibility  of  commencing  a 
civil  war  without  further  orders,  retired  with  his  troops  to 
Coleraine.  t  &5??i 

It  might  have  been  expected  that  the  resistance  of  Enniskil- 
len  and  Londonderry  would  have  irritated  Tyrconnel  into  tak- 
ing some  desperate  step.  And  in  truth  his  savage  and  imperious 
temper  was  at  first  inflamed  by  the  news  almost  to  madness. 
But,  after  wreaking  his  rage,  as  usual,  on  his  wig,  he  became 
somewhat  calmer.  Tidings  of  a  very  sobering  nature  had  just 
reached  him.  The  Prince  of  Orange  was  marching  unopposed 
to  London.  Almost  every  county  and  every  great  town  in 
England  had  declared  for  him.  James,  deserted  by  his  ablest 

*  'Walker's  Account  of  the  Siege  of  Deny,  1689  ;  Mackenzie's  Narrative  of  the 
Siege  of  Londonderry,  108!) ;  An  Apology  for  the  failures  charged  on  the  Rev- 
erend Mr.  Walker's  Account  of  the  late  Siege  of  Derry,  icSO ;  A  Light  to  the 
Blind.  This  last  work,  a  manuscript  in  the  possession  of  Lord  Fingal.  is  the 
work  of  a  zealous  Roman  Catholic  and  a  mortal  enemy  of  England.  Large  ex- 
tracts from  it  are  among  the  Mackintosh  MSS.  The  date  in  the  litlepage  ia  1711. 


140  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

captains  and  by  his  nearest  relatives,  had  sent  commissioners  to 
treat  with  the  invaders,  and  had  issued  writs  convoking  a  Par- 
liament. While  the  result  of  the  negotiations  which  were 
pending  in  England  was  uncertain,  the  Viceroy  could  not  ven- 
ture to  take  a  bloody  revenge  on  the  refractory  Protestants  of 
Ireland.  He  therefore  thought  it  expedient  to  affect  for  a  time 
a  clemency  and  moderation  which  were  by  no  means  congenial 
to  his  disposition.  The  task  of  quieting  the  Englishry  of  Ulster 
was  entrusted  to  William  Stewart,  Viscount  Mountjoy.  Mount- 
joy,  a  brave  soldier,  an  accomplished  scholar,  a  zealous  Protes- 
tant, and  yet  a  zealous  Tory,  was  one  of  the  very  few  members 
of  the  Established  Church  who  still  held  office  in  Ireland.  He 
was  Master  of  the  Ordnance  in  that  kingdom,  and  was  colonel 
of  a  regiment  in  which  an  uncommonly  large  proportion  of  the 
Englishry  had  been  suffered  to  remain.  At  Dublin  he  was  the 
centre  of  a  small  circle  of  learned  and  ingenious  men  who  had, 
under  his  presidency,  formed  themselves  into  a  Royal  Society, 
the  image,  on  a  small  scale,  of  the  Royal  Society  of  London. 
In  Ulster,  with  which  he  was  peculiarly  connected^his  name 
was  held  in  high  honour  by  the  colonists.*  He  hastened 
with  his  regiment  to  Londonderry  and  was  well  received  there. 
For  it  was  known  that  though  he  was  firmly  attached  to  hered- 
itary monarchy  he  was  not  less  firmly  attached  to  the  reformed 
religion.  The  citizens  readily  permitted  him  to  leave  within 
their  walls  a  small  garrison  exclusively  composed  of  Protestants, 
under  the  command  of  his  lieutenant  colonel,  Robert  Lundy, 
who  took  the  title  of  Governor.f 

The  news  of  Mountjoy's  visit  to  Ulster  was  highly  gratifying 
to  the  defenders  of  Enniskillen.  Some  gentlemen  deputed  by 
that  town  waited  on  him  to  request  his  good  offices,  but  were 
disappointed  by  the  reception  which  they  found.  "  My  advice 
to  you  is,"  he  said,  "to  submit  to  the  King's  authority."  "  What, 
my  Lord  ?  "  said  one  of  the  deputies  ;  "  Are  we  to  sit  still  and 
let  ourselves  be  butchered  ?  "  "  The  King,"  said  Mountjoy, 

*  As  to  Mountjoy's  character  and  position,  see  Clarendon's  letters  from  Ire. 
land,  particularly  that  to  Lord  Dartmouth  of  Feb.  8,  and  that  to  Evelyn  of.  ITeb. 
\4, 1685-6.  "  Bon  officier,  et  homme  d'esprit,"  says  Avaux. 

t  Walker's  account ;  Light  to  the  Blind* 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  141 

protect  you."  "If  all  that  we  hear  be  true,"  said  the 
deputy,  "  His  Majesty  will  find  it  hard  enough  to  protect  him- 
self." The  conference  ended  in  this  unsatisfactory  manner. 
Enniskilleu  still  kept  its  attitude  of  defiance  ,  and  Mountjoy  re- 
turned to  Dublin.* 

By  this  time  it  had  indeed  become  evident  that  James  could 
not  protect  himself.  It  was  known  in  Ireland  that  he  had  fled ; 
that  he  had  been  stopped ;  that  he  had  fled  again  ;  that  the 
Prince  of  Orange  had  arrived  at  Westminster  in  triumph,  had 
taken  on  himself  the  administration  of  the  realm,  and  had  issued 
letters  summoning  a  Convention. 

Those  lords  and  gentlemen  at  whose  request  the  Prince  had 
assumed  the  government,  had  earnestly  entreated  him  to  take 
the  state  of  Ireland  into  his  immediate  consideration  ;  and  he 
had  in  reply  assured  them  that  he  would  do  his  best  to  maintain 
the  Protestant  religion  and  the  English  interest  in  that  kingdom. 
His  enemies  afterwards  accused  him  of  utterly  disregarding  this 
promise  ;  nay,  they  alleged,  that  he  purposely  suffered  Ireland 
to  sink  deeper  and  deeper  in  calamity.  Halifax,  they  said,  had, 
with  cruel  and  perfidious  ingenuity,  devised  this  mode  of  placing 
the  Convention  under  a  species  of  duress ;  and  the  trick  had 
succeeded  but  too  well.  The  vote  which  called  William  to  the 
throne  would  not  have  passed  so  easily  but  for  the  extreme 
dangers  which  threatened  the  state  ;  and  it  was  in  consequence 
of  his  own  dishonest  inactivity  that  those  dangers  had  become  ex- 
treme.f  As  this  accusation  rests  on  no  proof,  those  who  repeat 
it  are  at  least  bound  to  show  that  some  course  clearly  better 
than  the  course  which  William  took  was  open  to  him  ;  and  this 
they  will  find  a  difficult  task.  If  indeed  he  could,  within  a  few 
weeks  after  his  arrival  in  London,  have  sent  a  great  expedition 
to  Ireland,  that  kingdom  might  perhaps,  after  a  short  struggle, 
or  without  a  struggle,  have  submitted  to  his  authority ;  and  a 
long  series  of  crimes  and  calamities  might  have  been  averted. 
But  the  factious  orators  and  pamphleteers,  who,  much  at  their 

*  Mac  Cormick's  Further  Impartial  Account. 

t  Burnet,  i.  807  ;  and  the  notes  by  Swift  and  Dartmouth.    Tutchin,  In  the 
Observator,  repeats  this  idle  calumny. 


K2  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

ease,  reproached  him  for  not  sending  such  an  expedition, 
have  been  perplexed  if  they  had  been  required  to  find  the  men, 
the  ships,  and  the  funds.  The  English  army  had  lately  been 
arrayed  against  him  :  part  of  it  was  still  ill  disposed  towards 
him  ;  and  the  whole  was  utterly  disorganised.  Of  the  army 
'which  he  had  brought  from  Holland  not  a  regiment  could  be 
spared.  He  had  found  the  treasury  empty  and  the  pay  of  the 
navy  in  arrear.  He  had  no  power  to  hypothecate  any  part  of 
the  public  revenue.  Those  who  lent  him  money  lent  it  on  no 
security  but  his  bare  word.  It  was  only  by  the  patriotic  liberali- 
ty of  the  merchants  of  London  that  he  was  enabled  to  defray 
the  ordinary  charges  of  government  till  the  meeting  of  the  Con- 
vention. It  is  surely  unjust  to  blame  him  for  not  instantly 
fitting  out,  in  such  circumstances,  an  armament  sufficient  to 
conquer  a  kingdom. 

Perceiving  that,  till  the  government  of  England  was  settled, 
it  would  not  be  in  his  power  to  interfere  effectually  by  arms  in 
the  affairs  of  Ireland,  he  determined  to  try  what  effect  negotia- 
tion would  produce.  Those  who  judged  after  the  event  pro- 
nounced that  he  had  not,  on  this  occasion,  shown  his  usual 
sagacity.  He  ought,  they  said,  to  have  known  that  it  was  absurd 
to  expect  submission  from  Tyrconnel.  Such  however  was  not 
at  the  time  the  opinion  of  men  who  had  the  best  means  of  in- 
formation, and  whose  interest  was  a  sufficient  pledge  for  their 
sincerity.  A  great  meeting  of  noblemen  and  gentlemen  who  had 
property  in  Ireland  was  held,  during  the  interregnum,  at  the 
house  of  the  Duke  of  Orinond  in  Saint  James's  Square.  They 
advised  tha  Prince  to  try  whether  the  Lord  Deputy  might  not 
be  induced  to  capitulate  on  honourable  and  advantageous  terms,* 
In  truth  there  is  strong  reason  to  believe  that  Tyrconnel  really 
wavered.  For,  fierce  as  were  his  passions,  they  never  made  him 
forgetful  of  his  interest ;  and  he  might  well  doubt  whether  it 
were  not  for  his  interest,  in  declining  years  and  health,  to  retire 
from  business  with  full  indemnity  for  all  past  offences,  with  high 
rank,  and  with  an  ample  fortune,  rather  than  to  stake  his  life 

*  The  Orange  Gazette,  Jan.  10,  1G83. 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  143 

and  property  on  the  event  of  a  war  against  the  whole  power  of 
England.  It  is  certain  that  he  professed  himself  willing  to  yield. 
He  opened  a  communication  with  the  Prince  of  Orange,  and 
affected  to  take  counsel  with  Mountjoy,  and  witTi  others  who, 
though  they  had  not  thrown  off  their  allegiance  to  James,  were 
yet  firmly  attached  to  the  Established  Church  and  to  the  English 
connection. 

In  one  quarter,  a  quarter  from  which  William  was  justified 
in  expecting  the  most  judicious  counsel,  there  was  a  strong  con- 
viction that  the  professions  of  Tyrconnel  were  sincere.  No 
British  statesman  had  then  so  high  a  reputation  throughout 
Europe  as  Sir  William  Temple.  His  diplomatic  skill  had, 
twenty  years  before,  arrested  the  progress  of  the  French  power. 
He  had  been  a  steady  and  an  useful  friend  to  the  United  Prov- 
inces and  to  the  House  of  Nassau.  He  had  long  been  on  terms 
of  friendly  confidence  with  the  Prince  of  Orange,  and  had  nego- 
tiated that  marriage  to  which  England  owed  her  recent  deliver- 
ance. With  the  affairs  of  Ireland  Temple  was  supposed  to  be 
peculiarly  well  acquainted.  His  family  had  considerable  prop- 
erty there  :  he  had  himself  resided  there  during  several  years : 
he  had  represented  the  county  of  Carlow  in  Parliament ;  and  a 
large  part  of  his  income  was  derived  from  a  lucrative  Irish  office. 
There  was  no  height  of  power,  of  rank,  or  of  opulence  to  which 
he  might  not  have  risen,  if  he  would  have  consented  to  quit  his 
retreat,  and  to  lend  his  assistance  and  the  weight  of  his  name 
to  the  new  government.  But  power,  rank  and  opulence  had 
less  attraction  for  his  Epicurean  temper  than  ease  and  security. 
He  rejected  the  most  tempting  invitations,  and  continued  to 
amuse  himself  with  his  books,  his  tulips,  and  his  pineapples,  in 
rural  seclusion.  With  some  hesitation,  however,  he  consented  to 
let  his  eldest  son  John  enter  into  the  service  of  William.  Dur- 
ing the  vacancy  of  the  throne,  John  Temple  was  employed  in 
business  of  high  importance ;  and  on  subjects  connected  with 
Ireland,  hisopinion,  which  might  reasonably  be  supposed  to  agree 
with  his  father's,  had  great  weight.  The  young  politician  flat- 
tered himself  that  he  had  secured  the  services  of  an  agent  emi- 
nently qualified  to  bring  the  negotiation  with  Tyrcoimel  to  a 
prosperous  issue. 


144  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

This  agent  was  one  of  a  remarkable  family  which  had  sprung 
from  a  noble  Scottish  stock,  but  which  had  long  been  settled  in 
Ireland,  and  which  professed  the  Roman  Catholic  religion.  In 
the  gay  crowd  which  thronged  Whitehall,  during  those  scan- 
dalous years  of  jubilee  which  immediately  followed  the  Restora- 
tion, the  Hamiltons  were  preeminently  conspicuous.  The  long 
fair  ringlets,  the  radiant  bloom,  and  the  languishing  blue  eyes 
of  the  lovely  Elizabeth  still  charm  us  on  the  canvass  of  Lely. 
She  had  the  glory  of  achieving  no  vulgar  conquest.  It  was  re- 
served for  her  voluptuous  beauty  and  for  her  flippant  wit  to 
overcome  the  aversion  which  the  cold  hearted  and  scoffing  Gram- 
mont  felt  for  the  indissoluble  tie.  One  of  her  brothers,  Anthony, 
became  the  chronicler  of  that  brilliant  and  dissolute  society  of 
which  he  had  been  not  the  least  brilliant  nor  the  least  dissolute 
member.  He  deserves  the  high  praise  of  having,  though  not  a 
Frenchman,  written  the  book  which  is,  of  all  books,  the  most 
exquisitely  French,  both  in  spirit  and  in  manner.  Another 
brother,  named  Richard,  had,  in  foreign  service,  gained  some 
military  experience.  His  wit  and  politeness  had  distinguished 
him  even  in  the  splendid  circle  of  Versailles.  It  was  whispered 
that  he  had  dared  to  lift  his  eyes  to  an  exalted  lady,  the  natural 
daughter  of  the  Great  King,  the  wife  of  a  legitimate  prince  cf 
the  House  of  Bourbon,  and  that  she  had  not  seemed  to  be  dis- 
pleased by  the  attentions  of  her  presumptuous  admirer.* 
Richard  had  subsequently  returned  to  his  native  country,  had 
been  appointed  brigadier  general  in  the  Irish  army,  and  had 
been  sworn  of  the  Irish  Privy  Council.  When  the  Dutch  inva 
sion  was  expected,  he  came  across  Saint  George's  Channel  with 
the  troops  which  Tyrconnel  sent  to  reinforce  the  royal  army. 
After  the  flight  of  James,  those  troops  submitted  to  the  Prince 
of  Orange.  Richard  Hamilton  not  only  made  his  own  peace 
with  what  was  now  the  ruling  power,  but  declared  himself  con- 
fident that,  if  he  were  sent  to  Dublin,  he  could  conduct  the 
negotiation  which  had  been  opened  there  to  a  happy  close.  If 
he  failed,  he  pledged  his  word  to  return  to  London  in  three  weeks. 
His  influence  in  Ireland  was  known  to  be  great :  his  honour  had 
*  M^iuoirea  de  Madame  de  la  Fayette. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  145 

never  been  questioned  ;  and  he  was  highly  esteemed  by  John 
Temple.  The  young  statesman  declared  that  he  would  answer 
for  his  friend  Richard  as  for  himself.  This  guarantee  was 
thought  sufficient ;  and  Hamilton  set  out  for  Ireland,  proclaim- 
ing everywhere  that  he  should  soon  bring  Tyrconnel  to  reason. 
The  offers  which  he  was  authorised  to  make  to  the  Roman 
Catholics  and  personally  to  the  Lord  Deputy  were  most  liberal.* 
It  is  not  impossible  that  Hamilton  may  have  really  meant  to 
keep  his  promise.  But  when  he  arrived  at  Dublin  he  found  that 
he  had  undertaken  a  task  which  he  could  not  perform.  The 
hesitation  of  Tyrconnel,  whether  genuine  or  feigned,  was  at  an 
end.  He  had  found  that  he  had  no  longer  a  choice.  He  had 
with  little  difficulty  stimulated  the  ignorant  and  susceptible  Irish 
to  fury.  To  calm  them  was  beyond  his  skill.  Rumours  were 
abroad  that  the  Viceroy  was  corresponding  with  the  English ; 
and  those  rumours  had  set  the  nation  on  fire.  The  cry  of  the 
common  people  was  that,  if  he  dared  to  selLthem  for  wealth 
and  honours,  they  would  burn  the  Castle  and  him  in  it,  and 
would  put  themselves  under  the  protection  of  France,  t  It  was 
necessary  for  him  to  protest,  truly  or  falsely}  that  he  had  never 
harboured  any  thought  of  submission,  and  that  he  had  pretend- 
ed to  negotiate  only  for  the  purpose  of  gaining  time.  Yet,  be- 
fore he  openly  declared  against  the  English  settlers,  and  against 
England  herself,  what  must  be  a  war  to  the  death,  he  wished  to 
rid  himself  of  Mountjoy,  who  had  hitherto  been  true  to  the 
cause  of  James,  but  who,  it  was  well  known,  would  never  con- 
sent to  be  a  party  to  the  spoliation  and  oppression  of  the  colo- 
nists. Hypocritical  professions  of  friendship  and  of  pacific  in- 
tentions were  not  spared.  It  was  a  sacred  duty,  Tyrconnel  said, 
to  avert  the  calamities  which  seemed  to  be  impending.  King 
James  himself,  if  he  understood  the  whole  case,  would  not  wish 
his  Irish  friends  to  engage  at  that  moment  in  an  enterprise  which 
must  be  fatal  to  them  and  useless  to  him.  He  would  permit 
them,  he  would  command  them,  to  submit  to  necessity,  and  to 
reserve  themselves  for  better  times.  If  any  man  of  weight, 

*  Burnet,  i.  808  ;  Life  of  James,  ii.  320  ;   Commons'  Journals,  July  29, 1689. 
t  Avaux  to  Lewis,  "IL^.  1689. 

April  4 

VOL.  III.— 10 


146  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

any  man  loyal,  able,  and  well  informed,  would  repair  to  Saint 
Germains  and  explain  the  state  of  things,  His  Majesty  would 
easily  be  convinced.  Would  Mountjoy  undertake  this  most 
honourable  and  important  mission  ?  Mounjoy  hesitated,  and 
suggested  that  some  person  more  likely  to  be  acceptable  to  the 
King  should  be  the  messenger.  Tyrconnel  swore,  ranted,  de- 
clared that,  unless  King  James  were  well  advised,  Ireland  would 
sink  to  the  pit  of  hell,  and  insisted  that  Mountjoy  should  go  as 
the  representative  of  the  loyal  members  of  the  Established 
Church,  and  should  be  accompanied  by  Chief  Baron  Rice,  a 
Roman  Catholic  high  in  the  royal  favour.  Mountjoy  yielded. 
The  two  ambassadors  departed  together,  but  with  very  different 
commissions.  Rice  was  charged  to  tell  James  that  Mountjoy 
was  a  traitor  at  heart,  and  had  been  sent  to  France  only  that 
the  Protestants  of  Ireland  might  be  deprived  of  a  favourite 
leader.  The  King  was  to  be  assured  that  he  was  impatiently 
expected  in  Ireland,  and  that,  if  he  would  show  himself  there  with 
a  French  force,  he  might  speedily  retrieve  his  fallen  fortunes.* 
The  Chief  Baron  earned  with  him  other  instructions  which 
were  probably  kept»  secret  even  from  the  Court  of  Saint  Ger- 
mains. If  James  should  be  unwilling  to  put  himself  at  the  head 
of  the  native*  population  of  Ireland,  Rice  was  directed  to  request 
a  private  audience  of  Lewis,  and  to  offer  to  make  the  island  a 
province  of  France.f 

As  soon  as  the  two  envoys  had  departed,  Tyrconnel  set  him- 
self to  prepare  for  the  conflict  which  had  become  inevitable  ; 
and  he  was  strenuously  assisted  by  the  faithless  Hamilton.  The 
Irish  nation  was  called  to  arms  ;  and  the  call  was  obeyed  with 
strange  promptitude  arid  enthusiasm.  The  flag  on  the  Castle 
of  Dublin'  was  embroidered  with  the  words,  "  Now  or  never ! 
Now  and  for  ever  !  "  Those  words  resounded  through  the  whole 
island. $  Never  in  modern  Europe  has  there  been  such  a  rising  up 
of  a  whole  people.  The  habits  of  the  Celtic  peasant  were  such 

*  Clarke's  Life  of  James,  ii.  331 ;  Mountjoy's  Circular  Letter,  dated  .Tan.  10, 
16£8-9  ;    King,  iv.  8.    In  Light  to  the  Blind,  Tyreomiel's  "  wise  dissimulation 
is  commended. 

1  .nvaux  to  Lewis,  April  13-23,  1089. 

t  Printed  Letter  from  Dublin,  Feb.  25,  1089  ;  Mephibosheth  and  Ziba,  1689 


WILLIAM   AND    MAKY.  147 

that  he  made  no  sacrifice  in  quitting  his  potato  ground  for  the 
camp.  He  loved  excitement  and  adventure.  He  feared  work 
far  more  than  danger.  His  national  and  religious  feelings  had, 
during  three  years,  been  exasperated  by  the  constant  application 
of  stimulants.  At  every  fair  and  market  he  had  heard  that  a 
good  time  was  at  hand,  that  the  tyrants  who  spoke  Saxon  and 
lived  in  slated  houses  were  about  to  be  swept  away,  and  that 
the  land  would  again  belong  to  its  own  children.  By  the  peat 
fires  of  a  hundred  thousand  cabins  had  nightly  been  sung  rude 
ballads  which  predicted  the  deliverance  of  the  oppressed  race. 
The  priests,  most  of  whom  belonged  to  those  old  families  which 
the  Act  of  Settlement  had  ruined,  but  which  were  still  revered 
by  the  native  population,  had,  from  a  thousand  altars,  charged 
every  Catholic  to  show  his  zeal  for  the  true  Church  by  provid- 
ing weapons  against  the  day  when  it  might  be  necessary  to  try 
the  chances  of  battle  in  her  cause.  The  army,  which,  under 
Ormond,  had  consisted  of  only  eight  regiments,  was  now  in- 
creased to  forty -eight :  and  the  ranks  were  soon  full  to  over- 
flowing. It  was  impossible  to  find  at  short  notice  one  tenth  of 
the  number  of  good  officers  which  was  required.  Commissions 
were  scattered  profusely  among  idle  cosherers  who  claimed  to 
be  descended  from  good  Irish  families.  Yet  even  thus  the  sup- 
ply of  captains  and  lieutenants  fell  short  of  the  demand  ;  and 
many  companies  were  commanded  by  cobblers,  tailors,  and  foot- 
men.* 

The  pay  of  the  soldiers  was  very  small.  The  private  had 
no  more  than  three  pence  a  day.  One  half  only  of  this  pit- 
tance was  ever  given  him  in  money ;  and  that  half  was  often 
in  arrear.  But  a  far  more  seductive  bait  than  his  miserable 
stipend  was  the  prospect  of  boundless  license.  If  the  govern- 
ment allowed  him  less  than  sufficed  for  his  wants,  it  was  not 
extreme  to  mark  the  means  by  which  he  supplied  the  de- 

*  The  connection  of  the  priests  with  the  old  Irish  families  is  mentioned  in 
Petty's  Political  Anatomy  of  Ireland.  See  the  short  view  by  a  Clergyman  lately 
escaped.  1689 ;  Ireland's  Lamentation,  by  an  English  Protestant  that  lately 
narrowly  escaped  with  life  from  thence,  1689  ;  A  True  Account  of  the  Siat"  of 
Ireland,  by  a  person  who  with  Great  Difficulty  left  Dublin,  1CS9 ;  Kir.g,  .i.  7. 
Avaux  coiiliriud  all  that  these  writers  say  aUcut  the  Irish  officers. 


148  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

ficiency.  Though  four  fifths  of  the  population  of  Ireland  were 
Celtic  and  Roman  Catholic,  more  than  four  fifths  of  the  proper- 
ty of  Ireland  belonged  to  the  Protestant  Englishry.  The  gar- 
ners, the  cellars,  above  all  the  flocks  and  herds  of  the  minority, 
were  abandoned  to  the  majority.  Whatever  the  regular  troops 
spared  was  devoured  by  bands  of  marauders  who  overran  almost 
every  barony  in  the  island.  For.  the  arming  was  now  universal. 
No  man  dared  to  present  himself  at  mass  without  some  weapon, 
a  pike,  a  long  knife  called  a  skean,  or,  at  the  very  least,  a 
strong  ashen  stake,  pointed  and  hardened  in  the  fire.  The  very 
women  were  exhorted  by  their  spiritual  directors  to  carry 
skeans.  Every  smith,  every  carpenter,  every  cutler,  was  at 
constant  work  on  guns  and  blades.  It  was  scarcely  possible  to 
get  a  horse  shod.  If  any  Protestant  artisan  refused  to  assist 
in  the  manufacture  of  implements  which  were  to  be  used  against 
his  nation  and  his  religion,  he  was  flung  into  prison.  It  seems 
probable  that,  at  the  end  of  February,  at  least  a  hundred 
thousand  Irishmen  were  in  arms.  Near  fifty  thousand  of  them 
were  soldiers.  The  rest  were  banditti,  whose  violence  and  licen- 
tiousness the  Government  affected  to  disapprove,  but  did  not 
really  exert  itself  to  suppress.  The  Protestants  not  only  were 
not  protected,  but  were  not  suffered  to  protect  themselves.  It 
was  determined  that  they  should  be  left  unarmed  in  the  midst 
of  an  armed  and  hostile  population.  A  day  was  fixed  on  which 
they  were  to  bring  all  their  swords  and  firelocks  to  the  parish 
churches ;  and  it  was  notified  that  every  Protestant  house  in 
which,  after  that  day,  a  weapon  should  be  found  should  be 
given  up  to  be  sacked  by  the  soldiers.  Bitter  complaints 
were  made  that  any  knave  might,  by  hiding  a  spearhead  or  an 
old  gunbarrel  in  a  corner  of  a  mansion,  bring  utter  ruin  on  tLe 
owner.* 

*  At  the  French  War  Office  is  a  report  on  the  State  of  Ireland  in  February 
1689.  In  that  report  it  is  said  that  the  Irish  who  had  enlisted  as  soldiers  were 
f  orty-flve  thousand,  and  that  the  number  would  have  been  a  hundred  thousand, 
if  all  who  volunteered  had  been  admitted.  See  the  Sad  and  Lamentable  Condi- 
tion of  the  Protestants  in  Ireland,  1689  ;  Hamilton's  True  Relation,  1690  ;  The 
Stale  of  Papist  and  Protestant  Properties  in"  the  Kingdom  of  Ireland,  1689  ;  A 
True  Representation  to  tho  King  and  People  of  England  how  Matters  were  car- 
ried on  all  along  in  Ireland,  licensed  Aug.  16, 1G89 ,  Letter  from  Dublin,  1689  • 


•WILLIAM   AND    MART.  149 

Chief  Justice  Keating,  himself  a  Protestant,  and  almost  the 
only  Protestant  who  still  held  a  great  place  in  Ireland,  strug- 
gled courageously  in  the  cause  of  justice  and  order  against  the 
united  strength  of  the  government  and  the  populace.  At  the 
Wicklow  assizes  of  that  spring,  he,  from  the  seat  of  judgment, 
set  forth  with  great  strength  of  language  the  miserable  state  of 
the  country,  Whole  counties,  he  said,  were  devastated  by  a  rab- 
ble resembling  the  vultures  and  ravens  which  follow  the  march 
of  an  army.  Most  of  these  wretches  were  not  soldiers.  They 
acted  under  no  authority  known  to  the  law.  Yet  it  was,  ho 
owned,  but  too  evident  that  they  were  encouraged  and  screened 
by  some  who  were  in  high  command.  How  else  could  it  be 
that  a  market  overt  for  plunder  should  be  held  within  a  short 
distance  of  the  capital  ?  The  stories  which  travellers  told  of 
the  savage  Hottentots  near  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  were  realised 
in  Leinster.  Nothing  was  more  common  than  for  an  honest 
man  to  lie  down  rich  in  flocks  and  herds  acquired  by  the  in- 
dustry of  a  long"  life,  and  to  wake  a  beggar.  It  was  however 
to  small  purpose  that  Keating  attempted,  in  the  midst  of  that 
fearful  anarchy,  to  uphold  the  supremacy  of  the  law.  Priests 
and  military  chiefs  appeared  on  the  bench  for  the  purpose  of 
overawing  the  judge  and  countenancing  the  robbers.  One 
ruffian  escaped  because  no  prosecutor  dared  to  appear.  An- 
other declared  that  he  had  armed  himself  in  conformity  to  the 
orders  of  his  spiritual  guide,  and  to  the  example  of  many  per- 
sons of  higher  station  than  himself,  whom  he  saw  at  that  mo- 
ment in  court.  Two  only  of  the  Merry  Boys,  as  they  were 
called,  were  convicted :  the  worst  criminals  escaped ;  and  the 
Chief  Justice  indignantly  told  the  jurymen  that  the  guilt  of  the 
public  ruin  lay  at  their  door.* 

When  such  disorder  prevailed  in  Wicklow,  it  is  easy  to  im- 

aoine  what  must  have  been  the  state  of  districts  more  barbarous 

o 

and  more  remote  from  the  seat  of  government.  Keating  ap- 
pears to  have  been  the  only  magistrate  who  strenuously  exerted 

Ireland's  Lamentation,  1689  ;  Compleat  History  of  the  Life  and  Military  Actions 
of  Richard,  Earl  of  Tyrconnel,  Generalissimo  of  all  the  Irish  forces  now  iu 
arms.  16R9. 

••*  See  the  proceedings  in  the  State  Trials. 


150  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

himself  to  put  the  law  in  force.  Indeed  Nugent,  the  Chief 
Justice  of  the  highest  criminal  court  of  the  realm,  declared  on 
the  bench  at  Cork  that,  without  violence  and  spoliation,  the  in- 
tentions of  the  government  could  not  be  carried  into  effect,  and 
that  robbery  must  at  that  con  juncture  be  tolerated  as  a  necessary 
evil.* 

The  destruction  of  property  which  took  place  within  a  few 
weeks  would  be  incredible,  if  it  were  not  attested  by  witnesses 
unconnected  with  each  other  and  attached  to  very  different  in- 
terests. There  is  a  close,  and  sometimes  almost  a  verbal,  agree- 
ment between  the  descriptions  given  by  Protestants,  who,  dur- 
ing that  reign  of  terror,  escaped,  at  the  hazard  of  their  lives,  to 
England,  and  the  descriptions  given  by  the  envoys,  commissa- 
ries, and  captains  of  Lewis.  All  agreed  in  declaring  that  it 
would  take  many  years  to  repair  the  waste  which  had  been 
wrought  in  a  few  weeks  by  the  armed  peasantry. f  Some  of 
the  Saxon  aristocracy  had  mansions  richly  furnished,  and  side- 
boards gorgeous  with  silver  bowls  and  chargers.  All  this 
wealth  disappeared.  One  house,  in  which  there  had  been  three 
thousand  pounds'  worth  of  plate,  was  left  without  a  spoon. $ 
But  the  chief  riches  of  Ireland  consisted  in  cattle.  Innumer- 
able flocks  and  herds  covered  that  vast  expanse  of  emerald 
meadow,  saturated  with  the  moisture  of  the  Atlantic.  More 
than  one  gentleman  possessed  twenty  thousand  sheep  and  four 
thousand  oxen.  The  freebooters  who  now  overspread  the 
country  belonged  to  a  class  which  was  accustomed  to  live  on 
potatoes  and  sour  whey,  and  which  had  always  regarded  meat 
as  a  luxury  reserved  for  the  rich.  These  men  at  first  revelled 
in  beef  and  mutton,  as  the  savage  invaders,  who  of  old  poured 
down  from  the  forests  of  the  north  on  Italy,  revelled  in  Massic 
and  Falernian  wines.  The  Protestants  described  with  contempt- 
uous disgust  the  strange  gluttony  of  their  newly  liberated  slaves. 
Carcasses,  half  raw  and  half  burned  to  cinders,  sometimes  still 

*  King,  iii.  10. 

t  Ten  years,  says  the  French  Ambassador  ;  twenty  years,  says  a  Protestant 
fugitive. 

t  Animadversions  on  the  proposal  for  sending  back  the  nobility  and  gentry  of 
Ireland,  1689-09. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  151 

bleeding,  sometimes  in  a  state  of  loathsome  decay,  were  torn  to 
pieces,  and  swallowed  without  salt,  bread,  or  herbs.  Those 
marauders  who  preferred  boiled  meat,  being  often  in  want  of 
kettles,  contrived  to  cook  the  steer  in  his  own  skin.  An  ab- 
surd tragi-comedy  is  still  extant,  which  was  acted  in  this  and 
the  following  year  at  some  low  theatre  for  the  amusement  of 
the  English  populace.  A  crowd  of  half  naked  savages  appeared 
on  the  stage,  howling  a  Celtic  song  and  dancing  round  an  ox. 
They  then  proceeded  to  cut  steaks  out  of  the  animal  while  still 
alive,  and  to  fling  the  bleeding  flesh  on  the  coals.  In  truth 
the  barbarity  and  filthiuess  of  the  banquets  of  the  Rapparees 
was  such  as  the  dramatists  of  Grub  Street  could  scarcely  car'- 
cature.  When  Lent  began,  the  plunderers  generally  ceased  to 
devour,  but  continued  to  destroy.  A  peasant  would  kill  a  cow 
merely  in  order  to  get  a  pair  of  brogues.  Often  a  whole  flock 
of  sheep,  often  a  herd  of  fifty  or  sixty  kine,  were  slaughtered  ; 
the  beasts  were  flayed ;  the  fleeces  and  hides  were  carried 
away ;  and  the  bodies  were  left  to  poison  the  air.  The 
French  ambassador  reported  ta  his  master  that,  in  six  weeks, 
fifty  thousand  horned  cattle  had  been  slain  in  this  manner,  and 
were  rotting  on  the  ground  all  over  the  country.  The  number 
of  sheep  that  were  butchered  during  the  same  time  was  popu- 
larly said  to  have  been  three  or  four  hundred  thousand.f 

*  King,  iii.  10  ;  The  Sad  Estate  and  Condition  of  Ireland,  as  represented  in  a 
Letter  from  a  worthy  Person  who  was  in  Dublin  ou  Friday  last,  March  4,  1689  ; 
Short  View  by  a  Clergyman,  1C89  ;  Lamentation  of  Ireland,  1689  ;  Complcat 
History  of  the  Life  and  Actions  of  Kichard,  Earl  of  Tyreonnel,  1689  ;  The  Royal 
Voyage,  acted  in  1689  and  1690.  This  drama,  which,  I  believe,  was  performed  at 
Bartholomew  Fair,  is  one  of  the  most  curious  of  a  curious  class  of  compositions, 
utterly  destitute  of  literary  merit,  but  valuable  as  showing  what  were  then  the 
most  successful  claptraps  for  an  audience  composed  of  the  common  people, 
'•  The  end  of  this  play,"  says  the  author  in  his  preface,  "  is  chiefly  to  expose  the 
perfidious,  base,  cowardly,  and  bloody  nature  of  the  Irish."  The  account  which 
the  fugitive  Protestants  give  of  the  wanton  destruction  of  cattle  is  confirmed  by 
Avaux  in  a  letter  to  Lewis,  dated  April  13-23, 1SS9.  and  by  Desgrigny  in  a  letter 
to  Louvois,  dated  May  17-27,  1690.  Most  of  the  despatches  written  by  Avaax 
during  his  mission  to  Ireland  are  contained  in  a  volume  of  which  a  very  few 
copies  were  printed  some  years  ago  at  the  English  Foreign  Office.  Of  many  1 
have  also  copies  made  at  the  French  Foreign  Office.  The  letters  of  Desgrigny, 
\vl»o  was  employed  in  the  Commissariat,  I  found  in  the  Library  of  the  French 
"\Var  Office.  I  cannot  too  strongly  express  my  sense  of  the  liberality  and  courtes/ 
with  which  the  immense  and  admirably  arranged  storehouses  of  curious  informa- 
tion at  Paris  were  thrown  open  to  me. 


152  nisTORT  or  ENGLAND. 

Any  estimate  which  can  now  be  framed  of  the  value  of  the 
property  destroyed  during  this  fearful  conflict  of  races  must 
necessarily  be  very  inexact.  Yfe  are  not  however  absolutely 
•without  materials  for  such  an  estimate.  The  Quakers  were 
neither  a  very  numerous  nor  a  very  opulent  class.  We  can 
hardly  suppose  that  they  were  more  than  a  fiftieth  part  of  the 
Protestant  population  of  Ireland,  or  that  they  possessed  more 
than  a  fiftieth  part  of  the  Protestant  wealth  of  Ireland.  They 
were  undoubtedly  better  treated  than  any  other  Protestant  sect. 
James  had  always  been  partial  to  them :  they  own  that  Tyrcon- 
nel  did  his  best  to  protect  them  ;  and  they  seem  to  have  found 
favour  even  in  the  sight  of  the  Ixapparees.*  Yet  the  Quakers 
computed  their  pecuniary  losses  at  a  hundred  thousand 
pounds.f 

In  Leinster,  Munster,  and  Connaught,  it  was  utterly  impos- 
sible for  the  English  settlers,  few  as  they  were  and  dispersed, 
to  offer  any  effectual  resistance  to  this  terrible  outbreak  of  the 
aboriginal  population.  Charleville,  Mallow,  Sligo,  fell  into  the 
hands  of  the  natives.  Bandonj  where  the  Protestants  had  mus- 
tered in  considerable  force,  was  reduced  by  Lieutenant  General 
Macarthy,  an  Irish  officer  who  was  descended  from  one  of  the 
most  illustrious  Celtic  houses,  and  who  had  long  served,  under 
a  feigned  name,  in  the  French  army.J  The  people  of  Kenmare 
held  out  in  their  little  fastness  till  they  were  attacked  by  three 
thousand  regular  soldiers,  and  till  it  was  known  that  several 
pieces  of  ordnance  were  coming  to  batter  down  the  turf  wall 
which  surrounded  the  agent's  house.  Then  at  length  a  capitu- 
lation was  concluded.  The  colonists  were  suffered  to  embark  in 
a  small  vessel  scantily  supplied  with  food  and  water.  They 
had  no  experienced  navigator  on  board  :  but  after  a  voyage  of 
a  fortnight,  during  which  they  were  crowded  together  like 

*  "  A  remarkable  thing  never  to  be  forgotten  was  that  they  that  were  in  gov- 
ernment then" — at  the  end  of  1688 — "seemed  to  favour  us  and  endeavour  to 
preserve  Friends."— History  of  the  Rise  and  Progress  of  the  People  called  Qua- 
kers in  Ireland,  by  Wight  and  Rutty,  Dublin,  1751.  King  indeed  (iii.  17)  re- 
proaches the  Quakers  as  allies  and  tools  of  the  Papists. 

t  Wight  and  Rutty. 

$  Life  of  James,  ii.  327.  Orig.  Mere.  Macarthy  and  his  feigned  nam*  ar« 
repeatedly  mentioned  by  Dangeau. 


•\VILLIAM    AXD    MARY.  153 

slaves  iu  a  Guinea  ship,  and  suffered  the  extremity  of  thirst  and 
hunger,  they  reached  Bristol  in  safety.*  When  such  was  tho 
fate  of  the  towns,  it  was  evident  that  the  country  seats  which 
the  Protestant  landowners  had  recently  fortified  in  the  three 
southern  provinces  could  no  longer  be  defended.  Many  families 
submitted,  delivered  up  their  arms,  and  thought  themselves 
happy  in  escaping  with  life.  But  many  resolute  and  highspirit- 
ed  gentlemen  and  yeomen  were  determined  to  perish  rather  than 
yield.  They  packed  up  such  valuable  property  as  could  easily 
be  carried  away,  burned  whatever  they  could  not  remove,  and, 
well  armed  and  mounted,  set  out  for  those  spots  in  Ulster  which 
were  the  strongholds  of  their  race  and  of  their  faith.  The  flow- 
er of  the  Protestant  population  of  Munster  and  Connaught 
found  shelter  at  Enniskillen.  Whatever  was  bravest  and  most 
truehearted  in  Leinster  took  the  road  to  Londonderry,  f 

•  The  spirit  of  Enniskillen  and  Londonderry  rose  higher  and 
higher  to  meet  the  danger.     At  both  places  the  tidings  of  what 
had  been  done  by  the  Convention  at  Westminster  were  received 
with  transports  of  joy.     William  and  Mary  were  proclaimed  at 
Enniskillen  with  unanimous  enthusiasm,  and  with  such  pomp  as 
the  little  town  could  furnish. J    Lundy,  who  commanded  at  Lon- 
donderry, could  not  venture  to  oppose  himself  to  the  general 
sentiment  of  the  citizens  and  of  his  own  soldiers.     He  therefore 
gave  in  his  adhesion  to  the  new  government,  and  signed  a  decla- 
ration by  which  he  bound  himself  to  stand  by  that  government, 
on  pain  of  being  considered  a  coward  and  a  traitor.     A  vessel 
from  England  soon  brought  a  commission  from  William  and 
Mary  which  confirmed  him  in  his  office. § 

To  reduce  the  Protestants  of  Ulster  to  submission  before  aid 
could  arrive  from  England  was  now  the  chief  object  of  Tyrcon- 
nel.  A  great  force  was  ordered  to  move  northward,  under  the 

*  Exact  Relation  of  the  Persecutions,  Robberies  and  Losses  sustained  by  the 
Protestant*  of  Kilmare  in  Ireland,  1689. 

t  A  true  Representation  to  the  King  and  People  of  England  how  Matters 
were  carried  on  all  along  in  Ireland  by  the  late  King  James,  licensed  Ang.  16. 
1689  ;  A  true  Account  of  the  Present  State  of  Ireland  by  a  person  that  with  Great 
Difficulty  left  Dublin,  licensed  June  8, 1689. 

J  Hamilton's  Accounts  of  the  Inmskilling  Men,  1689. 

j  Walker's  Account,  1689. 


154  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

command  of  Richard  Hamilton.  This  man  had  violated  all 
the  obligations  which  are  held  most  sacred  by  gentlemen  and 
soldiers,  had  broken  faith  with  his  most  intimate  friends,  had 
forfeited  his  military  parole,  and  was  now  not  ashamed  to  take 
the  field  as  a  general  against  the  government  to  which  he  was 
bound  to  render  himself  up  as  a  prisoner.  His  march  left  on 
the  face  of  the  country  traces  which  the  most  careless  eye  could 
not  during  many  years  fail  to  discern.  His  army  was  accom- 
panied by  a  rabble,  such  as  Keating  had  well  compared  to  the 
unclean  birds  of  prey  which  swarm  wherever  the  scent  of  car- 
rion is  strong.  The  general  professed  himself  anxious  to  save 
from  ruin  and  outrage  all  Protestants  who  remained  quietly  at 
their  homes  ;  and  he  most  readily  gave  them  protections  under 
his  hand.  But  these  protections  proved  of  no  avail ;  and  he 
was  forced  to  own  that,  whatever  power  he  might  be  able  to 
exercise  over  his  soldiers,  he  could  not  keep  order  among  ihe 
mob  of  camp  followers.  The  country  behind  him  was  a  wilder- 
ness ;  and  soon  the  country  before  him  became  equally  desolate. 
For,  at  the  fame  of  his  approach,  the  colonists  burned  their 
furniture,  pulled  down  their  houses,  and  retreated  northward. 
Some  of  them  attempted  to  make  a  stand  at  Dromore,  but  were 
broken  and  scattered.  Then  the  flight  became  wild  and  tumul- 
tuous. The  fugitives  broke  down  the  bridges  and  burned  the 
ferryboats.  Whole  towns,  the  seats  of  the  Protestant  popula- 
tion, were  left  in  ruins  without  one  inhabitant.  The  people  of 
Omagh  destroyed  their  own  dwellings  so  utterly  that  no  roof 
was  left  to  shelter  the  enemy  from  the  rain  and  wind.  The 
people  of  Cavan  migrated  in  one  body  to  Enniskillen.  The 
day  was  wet  and  stormy.  The  road  was  deep  in  mire.  It  was 
a  piteous  sight  to  see,  mingled  with  the  armed  men,  the  women 
and  children  weeping,  famished,  and  toiling  through  the  mud 
up  to  their  knees.  All  Lisburn  fled  to  Antrim  ;  and,  as  the  foes 
drew  nearer,  all  Lisburn  and  Antrim  together  came  pouring 
into  Londonderry.  Thirty  thousand  Protestants,  of  both  sexes 
and  of  every  age,  were  crowded  behind  the  bulwarks  of  the 
City  of  Refuge.  There,  at  length,  on  the  verge  of  the  ocean, 
hunted  to  the  last  asylum,  and  baited  into  a  mood  in  which  men 


"WILLIAM   AND    MART.  155 

may  be  destroyed,  but  will  not  easily  be  subjugated,  the  imperial 
race  turned  desperately  to  bay.* 

Meanwhile  Mount  joy  and  Rico  had  arrived  in  France. 
Mountjoy  was  instantly  put  under  arrest  and  thrown  into  the 
Bastile.  James  determined  to  comply  with  the  invitation  which 
Rice  had  brought,  and  applied  to  Lewis  for  the  help  of  a  French 
army.  But  Lewis,  though  he  showed,  as  to  all  things  which 
concerned  the  personal  dignity  and  comfort  of  his  royal  guests, 
a  delicacy  even  romantic,  arid  a  liberality  approaching  to  pro- 
fusion, was  unwilling  to  send  a  large  body  of  troops  to  Ireland. 
He  saw  that  France  would  have  to  maintain  a  long  war  on  the 
Continent  against  a  formidable  coalition  :  her  expenditure  must 
be  immense ;  and  great  as  were  her  resources,  he  felt  it  to  be 
important  that  nothing  should  be  wasted.  He  doubtless  regarded 
with  sincere  commiseration  and  good  will  the  unfortunate  exiles 
to  whom  he  had  given  so  princely  a  welcome.  Yet  neither 
commiseration  nor  good  will  could  prevent  him  from  speedily 
discovering  that  his  brother  of  England  was  the  dullest  and 
most  perverse  of  human  beings.  The  folly  of  James,  his  inca- 
pacity to  read  the  characters  of  men  and  the  signs  of  the  times, 
his  obstinacy,  always  most  offensively  displayed  when  wisdom 
enjoined  concession,  his  vacillation,  always  exhibited  most 
pitiably  in  emergencies  which  required  firmness,  had  made  him 
an  outcast  from  England  and  might,  if  his  counsels  were  blindly 
followed,  bring  great  calamities  on  France.  As  a  legitimate 
sovereign  expelled  by  rebels,  as  a  confessor  of  the  true  faith 
persecuted  by  heretics,  as  a  near  kinsman  of  the  house  of  Bour- 
bon, who  had  seated  himself  on  the  hearth  of  that  House,  he 
was  entitled  to  hospitality,  to  tenderness,  to  respect.  It  was  fit 
that  he  should  have  a  stately  palace  and  a  spacious  forest,  that 
the  household  troops  should  salute  him  with  the  highest  military 
honours,  that  he  should  have  at  his  command  all  the  hounds  of 
the  Grand  Huntsman  and  all  the  hawks  of  the  Grand  Falconer. 
But,  when  a  prince,  who,  at  the  head  of  a  great  fleet  and  army, 

*  Mackenzie's  Narrative  ;  Mac  Cormick's  Further  Impartial  Account ;  Story's 
Impartial  History  of  the  Affairs  of  Ireland,  1091  ;  Apology  for  the  Protestant  >f 
Ireland ;  Letter  from  Dublin  of  Feb.  23, 1689  ;  Avaux  to  Lewis,  April  15-2o,  16SO. 


156  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

bad  Host  an  empire  without  striking  a  blow,  undertook  to  furnish 
plans  for  naval  and  military  expeditions ;  when  a  prince,  who 
had  been  undone  by  his  profound  ignorance  of  the  temper,  of  his 
own  countrymen,  of  his  own  soldiers,  of  his  own  domestics,  of  his 
own  children,  undertook  to  answer  for  the  zeal  and  fidelity  of 
the  Irish  people,  whose  tongue  he  could  not  speak,  and  on 
whose  land  he  had  never  set  his  foot ;  it  was  necessary  to  receive 
his  suggestions  with  caution.  Such  were  the  sentiments  of 
Lewis  ;  and  in  these  sentiments  he  was  confirmed  by  his  Minis- 
ter of  War  Louvois,  who,  on  private  as  well  as  on  public  grounds, 
was  unwilling  that  James  should  be  accompanied  by  a  large 
military  force.  Louvois  hated  Lauzun.  Lauzun  was  a  favourite 
at  Saint  Germains.  He  wore  the  garter,  a  badge  of  honour 
which  has  very  seldom  been  conferred  on  aliens  who  were  not 
sovereign  princes.  It  was  believed  indeed  at  the  French  Court 
that,  in  order  to  distinguish  him  from  the  other  knights  of  the 
most  illustrious  of  European  orders,  he  had  been  decorated  with 
that  very  George  which  Charles  the  First  had,  on  the  scaffold, 
put  into  the  hands  of  Juxon.*  Lauzun  had  been  encouraged 
to  hope  that,  if  French  forces  were  sent  to  Ireland,  he  should 
command  them ;  and  this  ambitious  hope  Louvois  was  bent  on 
disappointing.f 

An  army  was  therefore  for  the  present  refused  :  but  every- 
thing else  was  granted.  The  Brest  fleet  was  ordered  to  be  in 
readiness  to  sail.  Arms  for  ten  thousand  men  and  great  quan- 
tities of  ammunition  were  put  on  board.  About  four  hundred 
captains,  lieutenants,  cadets,  and  gunners  were  selected  for  the 
important  service  of  organising  and  disciplining  the  Irish  levies. 
The  chief  command  was  held  by  a  veteran  warrior,  the  Count 
of  Rosen.  Under  him  were  Maumont,  who  held  the  rank  of 
lieutenant  general,  and  a  brigadier  named  Pusignan.  Five 
hundred  thousand  crowns  in  gold,  equivalent  to  about  a  hundred 
and  twelve  thousand  pounds  sterling,  were  sent  to  Brest.:}:  For 
James's  personal  comforts  provision  was  made  with  anxiety  re- 

*  Meinoires  de  Madame  de  la  Fayette ;  Madame  de  S6vignt§  to  Madame  de 
Grignan,  February  28,  1689. 

t  Burnet,  ii.  17 ;  Life  of  James  II.,  ii.  320,  321,  322. 
t  Maumont's  Instructions. 


WILLIAM  AND    MART.  .  157 

sembling  that  of  a  tender  mother  equipping  her  son  for  a  first 
campaign.  The  cabin  furniture,  the  camp  furniture,  the  tents, 
the  bedding,  the  plate,  were  luxurious  and  superb.  Nothing 
which  could  be  agreeable  or  useful  to  the  exile  was  too  costly 
for  the  munificence,  or  too  trifling  for  the  attention,  of  his 
gracious  and/ splendid  host.  On  the  fifteenth  of  February, 
James  paid  a  farewell  visit  to  Versailles.  He  was  conducted 
round  the  buildings  and  plantations  with  every  mark  of  respect 
and  kindness.  The  fountains  played  in  his  honour.  It  was  the 
season  of  the  Carnival :  and  never  had  the  vast  palace  and  the 
sumptuous  gardens  presented  a  gayer  aspect.  In  the  evening 
the  two  kings,  after  a  long  and  earnest  conference  in  private, 
made  their  appearance  before  a  splendid  circle  of  lords  and 
ladies.  "  I  hope,"  said  Lewis,  in  his  noblest  and  most  winning 
manner,  "  that  we  are  about  to  part,  never  to  meet  again  in  this 
world.  That  is  the  best  wish  I  can  form  for  you.  But,  if  any 
evil  chance  should  force  you  to  return,  be  assured  that  you  Will 
find  me  to  the  last  such  as  you  have  found  me  hitherto."  On 
the  seventeenth,  Lewis  paid  in  return  a  farewell  visit  to  Saint 
Germains.  At  the  moment  of  the  parting  embrace,  he  said, 
with  his  most  amiable  smile,  "  We  have  forgotten  one  thing,  a 
cuirass  for  yourself.  You  shall  have  mine."  The  cuirass  was 
brought,  and  suggested  to  the  wits  of  the  Court  ingenious  allu- 
sions to  the  Vulcanian  panoply  which  Achilles  lent  to  his  feebler 
friend.  James  set  out  for  Brest ;  and  his  wife,  overcome  with 
sickness  and  sorrow,  shut  herself  up  with  her  child  to  weep 
and  pray.* 

James  was  accompanied  or  speedily  followed  by  several  of 
his  own  subjects,  among  whom  the  most  distinguished  were  his 
son  Berwick,  Cartwright  Bishop  of  Chester,  Powis,  Dover,  and 
Mel  fort.  Of  all  the  retinue,  none  was  so  odious  to  the  people 
of  Great  Britain  as  Melfort.  He  was  an  apostate  :  he  was 
believed  by  many  to  be  an  insincere  apostate  ;  and  the  insolent, 
arbitrary,  and  menacing  language  of  his  state  papers  disgusted 
even  the  Jacobites.  He  was  therefore  a  favourite  with  his 

*  Dangeau,  Feb.  15-25, 17-2T,  1689 ;  Madame  de  SevignS,  Feb.  18-28,  Feb.  20.  . 
Mgrnoires  de  Madame  de  la  Fayette,  AUich  2,  ' 


158  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

master  :  for  to  James  unpopularity,  obstinacy,  and  implacability 
were  the  greatest  recommendations  that  a  minister  could  have. 

What  Frenchman  should  attend  the  King  of  England  in 
the  character  of  ambassador  had  been  the  subject  of  grave 
deliberation  at  Versailles.  Barillon  could  not  be  passed  over 
without  a  marked  slight.  But  his  self-indulgent  habits,  his 
want  of  energy,  and,  above  all,  the  credulity  with  which  he  had 
listened  to  the  professions  of  Sunderland,  had  made  an  unfa- 
vourable impression  on  the  mind  of  Lewis.  What  was  to  be 
done  in  Ireland  was  not  work  for  a  trifler  or  a  dupe.  The 
agent  of  France  in  that  kingdom  must  be  equal  to  much  more 
than  the  ordinary  functions  of  an  envoy.  It  would  be  his  right 
and  his  duty  to  offer  advice  touching  every  part  of  the  political 
and  military  administration  of  the  country  in  which  he  would 
represent  the  most  powerful  and  the  most  beneficent  of  allies. 
Barillon  was  therefore  suffered  to  retire  into  privacy.  lie 
affected  to  bear  his  disgrace  with  composure.  His  political 
career,  though  it  had  brought  great  calamities  both  on  the 
House  of  Stuart  and  on  the  House  of  Bourbon,  had  been  by  no 
means  unprofitable  to  himself.  He  was  old,  he  said  :  he  was 
fat :  he  did  not  envy  younger  men  the  honour  of  living  on  po- 
tatoes and  whiskey  among  the  Ii  ish  bogs  :  he  would  try  to 
console  himself  with  partridges,  with  Champagne,  and  with  the 
society  of  the  wittiest  men  and  prettiest  women  of  Paris.  It 
was  rumoured,  however,  that  he  was  tortured  by  painful  emo- 
tions which  he  was  studious  to  conceal :  his  health  and  spirits 
failed  ;  and  he  tried  to  find  consolation  in  religious  duties. 
Some  people  were  much  edified  by  the  piety  of  the  old  volup- 
tuary :  but  others  attributed  his  death,  which  took  place  not 
long  after  his  retreat  from  public  life,  to  shame  and  vexa- 
tion.* 

The  Count  of  Avaux,  whose  sagacity  had  detected  all  the 
plans  of  William,  and  who  had  in  vain  recommended  a  policy 
which  would  .probably  have  frustrated  them,  was  the  man  on 

*  Memoirs  of  La  Fare  and  Saint  Simon  ;  Note  of  Renaurtot  on  English  affairs, 
1097,  in  the  French  Archives  ;  Madame  de  Se'vlgne',  j^.^-  March  11  21.  1689  ; 
Letter  of  Madame  de  Coulanges  to  M.  de  Coulanges,  July  23,  1691. 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  159 

whom  the  choice  of  Lewis  fell.  In  abilities  Avaux  had  no 
superior  among  the  numerous  able  diplomatists  whom  his 
country  then  possessed.  His  demeanour  was  singularly  pleas- 
ing, his  person  handsome,  his  temper  bland.  His  manners  and 
conversation  were  those  of  a  gentleman  who  had  been  bred  in. 
the  most  polite  and  magnificent  of  all  Courts,  who  had  repre- 
sented that  Court  both  in  Roman  Catholic  and  in  Protestant 
countries,  and  who  had  acquired  in  his  wanderings  the  art  of 
catching  the  tone  of  any  society  into  which  chance  might  throw 
him.  He  was  eminently  vigilant  and  adroit,  fertile  in  resources, 
and  skilful  in  discovering  the  weak  parts  of  a  character.  His 
own  character,  however,  was  not  without  its  weak  parts.  The 
consciousness  that  he  was  of  plebeian  origin  was  the  torment  of 
his  life.  He  pined  for  nobility  with  a  pining  at  once  pitiable 
and  ludicrous.  Able,  experienced,  and  accomplished  as  he  was, 
he  sometimes,  under  the  influence  of  this  mental  disease,  de- 
scended to  the  level  of  Moliere's  Jourdain,  and  entertained 
malicious  observers  with  scenes  almost  as  laughable  as  that  in 
which  the  honest  draper  was  made  a  Mamamouchi.*  It  would 
have  been  well  if  this  had  been  the  worst.  But  it  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  of  the  difference  between  right  and  wrong 
Avaux  had  no  more  notion  than  a  brute.  One  sentiment  was 
to  him  in  the  place  of  religion  and  morality,  a  superstitious 
and  intolerant  devotion  to  the  Crown  which  he  served.  This 
sentiment  pervades  all  his  despatches,  and  gives  a  colour  to  all 
his  thoughts  and  words.  Nothing  that  tended  to  promote  the 
interest  of  the  French  monarchy  seemed  to  him  a  crime.  Indeed 
he  appears  to  have  taken  it  for  granted  that  not  only  French- 
men, but  all  human  beings,  owed  a  natural  allegiance  to  the 
House  of  Bourbon,  and  that  whoever  hesitated  to  sacrifice  the 
happiness  and  freedom  of  his  own  native  country  to  the  glory 
of  that  House  was  a  traitor.  While  he  resided  at  the  Hague, 
he  always  designated  those  Dutchmen  who  had  sold  themselves 
to  France  as  the  well  intentioned  party.  In  the  letters  which 
he  wrote  from  Ireland,  the  same  feeling  appears  still  more 

*  See  Saint  Simon's  account  of  the  trick  by  which  Avaux  tried  to  pass  himself 
off  at  Stockholm  as  a  Kuight  of  the  Order  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 


160  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

strongly.  He  would  have  been  a  more  sagacious  politician  if 
he  had  sympathised  more  with  those  feelings  of  moral  approba- 
tion and  disapprobation  which  prevail  among  the  vulgar.  For 
his  own  indifference  to  all  considerations  of  justice  and  mercy 
was  such  that,  in  his  schemes,  he  made  no  allowance  for  the 
consciences  and  sensibilities  of  his  neighbours.  More  than  once 
he  deliberately  recommended  wickedness  so  horrible  that  wicked 
men  recoiled  from  it  with  indignation.  But  they  could  not 
succeed  even  in  making  their  scruples  intelligible  to  him.  To 
every  remonstrance  he  listened  with  a  cynical  sneer,  wondering 
within  himself  whether  those  who  lectured  him  were  such  fools 
as  they  professed  to  be,  or  were  only  shamming. 

Such  was  the  man  whom  Lewis  selected  to  be  the  companion 
and  monitor  of  James.  Avaux  was  charged  to  open,  if  possible, 
a  communication  with  the  malecontents  in  the  English  Parlia- 
ment :  and  he  was  authorised  to  expend,  if  necessary,  a  hundred 
thousand  crowns  among  them. 

James  arrived  at  Brest  on  the  fifth  of  March,  embarked 
there  on  board  of  a  man  of  war  called  the  Saint  Michael,  and 
sailed  within  forty-eight  hours.  He  had  ample  time,  however, 
before  his  departure,  to  exhibit  some  of  the  faults  by  which  he 
had  lost  England  and  Scotland,  and  by  which  he  was  about  to 
lose  Ireland.  Avaux  wrote  from  the  harbour  of  Brest  that  it 
would  not  be  easy  to  conduct  any  important  business  in  concert 
with  the  King  of  England.  His  Majesty  could  not  keep  any 
secret  from  anybody.  The  very  foremast  men  of  the  Saint 
Michael  had  already  heard  him  say  things  which  ought  to  have 
been  reserved  for  the  ears  of  his  confidential  advisers.* 

The  voyage  was  safely  and  quietly  performed  ;  and,  on  the 
afternoon  of  the  twelfth  of  March,  James  landed  in  the  harbour 
of  Kinsale.  By  the  Roman  Catholic  population  he  was  received 
with  shouts  of  unfeigned  transport.  The  few  Protestants  who 
remained  in  that  part  of  the  country  joined  in  greeting  him,  and 
perhaps  not  insincerely.  For,  though  an  enemy  of  their  religion, 

*  This  letter,  written  to  Lewis  from  the  harbour  of  Brest,  is  in  the  Archives 
of  the  French  Foreign  Oflice,  but  is  wanting  in  the  very  rare  volume  printed  in 
Downing  Street. 


WILLIA3I    AXD    MART.  161 

he  was  not  an  enemy  of  their  nation  ;  and  they  might  reasona- 
bly hope  that  the  worst  king  would  show  somewhat  more  re- 
spect for  law  and  property  than  had  been  shown  by  the  Merry 
Boys  and  Rapparees.  The  Vicar  of  Kinsale  was  among  those 
who  went  to  pay  their  duty  :  he  was  presented  by  the  Bishop 
of  Chester,  and  was  not  ungraciously  received.* 

James  learned  that  his  cause  was  prospering.  In  the  three 
southern  provinces  of  Ireland  the  Protestants  were  disarmed, 
and  were  so  effectually  bowed  down  by  terror  that  he  had 
nothing  to  apprehend  from  them.  In  the  North  there  was 
some  show  of  resistance  :  but  Hamilton  was  marching  against 
the  malecontents  ;  and  there  was  little  doubt  that  they  would 
easily  be  crushed.  A  day  was  spent  at  Kinsale  in  putting  the 
arms  and  ammunition  out  of  reach  of  danger.  Horses  sufficient 
to  carry  a  few  travellers  were  with  some  difficulty  procured  ; 
and,  on  the  fourteenth  of  March,  James  proceeded  to  Cork.f 

We  should  greatly  err  if  we  imagined  that  the  road  by  which 
he  entered  that  city  bore  any  resemblance  to  the  stately  approach 
which  strikes  the  traveller  of  the  nineteenth  century  with  -ad- 
miration. At  present  Cork,  though  deformed  by  many  misera- 
ble relics  of  a  former  age,  holds  no  mean  place  among  the  ports 
f)£  the  empire.  The  shipping  is  more  than  half  what  the  ship- 
ping of  London  was  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution.  The  cus- 
toms exceed  the  whole  revenue  which  the  whole  kingdom  of 
Ireland,  in  the  most  peaceful  and  prosperous  times,  yielded  to 
the  Stuarts.  The  town  is  adorned  by  broad  and  well  built 
streets,  by  fair  gardens,  by  a  Corinthian^  portico  which  would  do 
honour  to  Palladio,  and  by  a  Gothic  College  worthy  to  stand 
in  the  High  Street  of  Oxford.  In  1689,  the  city  extended  over 
about  one  tenth  part  of  the  space  which  it  now  covers,  and  was 
intersected  by  muddy  streams,  which  have  long  been  concealed 
by  arches  and  buildings.  A  desolate  marsh,  in  which  the  sports- 
man who  pursued  the  waterfowl  sank  deep  in  water  and  mire  at 
every  step,  covered  the  area  now  occupied  by  stately  buildings, 

*  A  full  and  true  account  of  the  Landing  and  Keception  of  the  late  King  James 
at  Kinsale,  in  a  letter  from  Bristol,  licensed  April  4,  1689  ;  Leslie's  Answer  to 
King;  Ireland's  Lamentation  ;  Avaux,  March  13-23. 

t  Avaux,  March  13-23, 1689  ;  Life  of  James,  ii.  327,  Orig.  Mem. 

VOL.  Ill — 11 


162  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

the  palaces  of  great  commercial  societies.  There  was  only  a 
single  street  in  which  two  wheeled  carriages  could  pass  each 
other.  From  this  street  diverged  to  right  and  left  alleys  squalid 
and  noisome  beyond  the  belief  of  those  who  have  formed  their 
notions  of  misery  from  the  most  miserable  parts  of  Saint  Giles's 
and  Whitechapel.  One  of  these  alleys,  called,  and,  by  com- 
parison, justly  called,  Broad  Lane,  is  about  ten  feet  wide.  From 
such  places,  now  seats  of  hunger  and  pestilence,  abandoned  to 
the  most  wretched  of  mankind,  the  citizens  poured  forth  to 
welcome  James.  He  was  received  with  military  honours  by 
Macarthy,  who  held  the  chief  command  in  Munster. 

It  was  impossible  for  the  King  to  proceed  immediately  to 
Dublin  ;  for  the  southern  counties  had  been  so  completely  laid 
waste  by  the  banditti  whom  the  priests  had  called  to  arms  that 
the  means  of  locomotion  were  not  easily  to  be  procured.  Horses 
had  become  rarities  :  in  a  large  district  there  were  only  two 
carts  ;  and  those  Avaux  pronounced  good  for  nothing.  Some 
days  elapsed  before  the  money  which  had  been  brought  from 
France,  though  no  very  formidable  mass,  could  be  dragged  over 
the  few  miles  which  separated  Cork  from  Kinsale.* 

While  the  King  and  his  Council  were  employed  in  trying  to 
procure  carriages  and  beasts,  Tyrconnel  arrived  from  Dublin. 
He  held  encouraging  language.  The  opposition  of  Enniskillen 
he  seems  to  have  thought  deserving  of  little  consideration. 
Londonderry,  he  said,  was  the  only  important  post  held  by  the 
Protestants  ;  and  even  Londonderry  would  not,  in  his  judgment, 
hold  out  many  days. 

At  length  James  was  able  to  leave  Cork  for  the  capital.  On 
the  road,  the  shrewd  and  observant  Avaux  made  many  remarks. 
The  first  part  of  the  journey  was  through  wild  highlands,  where 
it  was  not  strange  that  there  should  be  few  traces  of  art  and 
industry.  But,  from  Kilkenny  to  the  gates  of  Dublin  the  path 
of  the  travellers  lay  over  gently  undulating  ground,  rich  with 
natural  verdure.  That  fertile  district  should  have  been  covered 
with  flocks  and  herds,  orchards  and  cornfields  :  but  it  was  an 
untilled  and  unpeopled  desert.  Even  in  the  towns  the  artisans 

*  Avaux,  March  15-25,  1689. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  163 

were  very  few.  Manufactured  articles  were  hardly  to  be  found, 
and  if  found  could  be  procured  only  at  immense  prices.  The 
envoy  at  first  attributed  the  desolation  which  he  saw  on  every 
side  to  the  tyranny  of  the  English  colonists.  In  a  very  short 
time  he  was  forced  to  change  his  opinion.* 

James  received  on  his  progress  numerous  marks  of  the  good- 
will of  the  peasantry  ;  but  marks  such  as,  to  men  bred  in  the 
courts  of  France  and  England,  had  an  uncouth  and  ominous 
appearance.  Though  very  few  labourers  were  seen  at  work  in. 
the  fields,  the  road  was  lined  by  Rapparees  armed  with  skeans, 
stakes,  and  half  pikes,  who  crowded  to  look  upon  the  deliverer 
of  their  race.  The  highway  along  which  he  travelled  presented 
the  aspect  of  a  street  in  which  a  fair  is  held.  Pipers  came 
forth  to  play  before  him  in  a  style  which  was  not  exactly  that 
of  the  French  opera ;  and  the  villagers  danced  wildly  to  the 
music.  Long  frieze  mantles,  resembling  those  which  Spenser 
had,  a  century  before,  described  as  meet  beds  for  rebels  and  apt 
cloaks  for  thieves,  were  spread  along  the  path  which  the  caval- 
cade was  to  tread  ;  and  garlands  in  which  cabbage  stalks  sup- 
plied the  place  of  laurels,  were  offered  to  the  royal  hand.  The 
women  insisted  on  kissing  His  Majesty ;  but  it  should  seem  that 
they  bore  little  resemblance  to  their  posterity ;  for  this  compli- 
ment was  so  distasteful  to  him  that  he  ordered  his  retinue  to 
keep  them  at  a  distance-! 

On  the  twenty-fourth  of  March  he  entered  Dublin.  That 
city  was  then,  in  extent  and  population,  the  second  in  the 
British  isles.  It  contained  between  six  and  seven  thousand 
houses,  and  probably  above  thirty  thousand  inhabitants. $  In 
wealth  and  beauty,  however,  Dublin  was  inferior  to  many  Eng- 
lish towns.  Of  the  graceful  and  stately  public  buildings  which 
now  adorn  both  sides  of  the  Liffey  scarcely  one  had  been  even 
projected.  The  College,  a  very  different  edifice  from  that  which 

*  Avaux,  Ma"'h  a"'  1C89. 

April  4, 

t  A  full  and  true  Account  of  the  Landing  and  Reception  of  the  late  King 
James  ;  Ireland's  Lamentation  ;  Light  to  the  Blind. 

t  See  the  calculations  of  Petty,  King,  and  Davenant.  If  the  average  number 
of  inhabitants  to  a  house  waa  the  same  in  Dublin  as  in  London,  the  population  of 
Dublin  would  have  been  about  thirty-four  thousand. 


164  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

now  stands  on  the  same  site,  lay  quite  out  of  the  city.*  The 
ground  which  is  at  present  occupied  by  Leinster  House  and 
Charlemont  House,  by  Sackville  Street  and  Merrion  Square, 
was  open  meadow.  Most  of  the  dwellings  were  built  of  timber, 
and  have  long  given  place  to  more  substantial  edifices.  The 
Castle  had  in  1686  been  almost  uninhabitable.  Clarendon 
had  complained  that  he  knew  of  no  gentleman  in  Pall  Mall 
who  was  not  more  conveniently  and  handsomely  lodged  than 
the  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland.  No  public  ceremony  could  be 
performed  in  a  becoming  manner  under  the  Viceregal  roof. 
Nay,  in  spite  of  constant  glazing  and  tiling,  the  rain  perpetu. 
ally  drenched  the  apartments. f  Tyrconnel,  since  he  became 
Lord  Deputy,  had  erected  a  new  building  somewhat  more  com- 
modious. To  this  building  the  King  was  conducted  in  state 
through  the  southern  part  of  the  city.  Every  exertion  had 
been  made  to  give  an  air  of  festivity  and  splendour  to  the  dis- 
trict which  he  was  to  traverse.  The  streets,  which  were  gen- 
erally deep  in  mud,  were  strewn  with  gravel.  Boughs  and 
flowers  were  scattered  over  the  path.  Tapestry  and  arras  hung 
from  the  windows  of  those  who  could  afford  to  exhibit  such 
finery.  The  poor  supplied  the  place  of  rich  stuffs  with  blankets 
and  coverlids.  In  one  place  was  stationed  a  troop  of  friars 
with  a  cross ;  in  another  a  company  of  forty  girls  dressed  in 
white,  and  carrying  nosegays.  Pipers  and  harpers  played  "  The 
King  shall  enjoy  his  own  again."  The  Lord  Deputy  carried 
the  sword  of  state  before  his  master.  The  Judges,  the  Heralds, 
the  Lord  Mayor  and  Aldermen,  appeared  in  all  the  pomp  of 
office.  Soldiers  were  drawn  up  on  the  right  and  left  to  keep 
the  passages  clear.  A  procession  of  twenty  coaches  belonging 
to  public  functionaries  was  mustered.  Before  the  Castle  gate, 
the  King  was  met  by  the  host  under  a  canopy  borne  by  four 
bishops  of  his  church.  At  the  sight  he  fell  on  his  knees,  and 
passed  some  time  in  devotion.  He  then  rose  and  was  conducted 
to  the  chapel  of  his  palace,  once, — such  are  the  vicissitudes  of 

*  John  Dunton  speaks  of  College  Green  near  Dublin.  T  have  seen  letters  of 
that  age  directed  to  the  College,  by  Dublin.  There  are  some  interesting  old  maps 
ot  Dublin  in  the  British  Museum. 

t  Clarendon  to  Rochester,  Feb.  8,  1685-6,  April  20,  Aug.  12,  Nov.  30,  1686. 


"WILLIAM   AND   MART.  165 

human  things, — the  riding  house  of  Henry  Cromwell.  A  Te 
Deum  was  performed  in  honour  of  His  Majesty's  arrival.  The 
next  morning  he  held  a  Privy  Council,  discharged  Chief  Justice 
Keating  from  any  further  attendance  at  the  Board,  ordered 
Avaux  and  Bishop  Cartwright  to  be  sworn  in,  and  issued  a 
proclamation  convoking  a  Parliament  to  meet  at  Dublin  on  the 
seventh  of  May.* 

When  the  news  that  James  had  arrived  in  Ireland  reached 
London,  the  sorrow  and  alarm  were  general,  and  were  mingled 
with  serious  discontent.  The  multitude,  not  making  sufficient 
allowance  for  the  difficulties  by  which  William  was  encompass- 
ed on  every  side,  loudly  blamed  his  neglect.  To  all  the  invec- 
tives of  the  ignorant  and  malicious  he  opposed,  as  was  his  wont, 
nothing  but  immutable  gravity  and  the  silence  of  profound  dis- 
dain. But  few  minds  had  received  from  nature  a  temper  so 
firm  as  his  ;  and  still  fewer  had  undergone  so  long  and  so  rigorous 
a  discipline.  The  reproaches  which  had  no  power  to  shake 
his  fortitude,  tried  from  childhood  upwards  by  both  extremes  of 
fortune,  inflicted  a  deadly  wound  on  a  less  resolute  heart. 

While  all  the  coffeehouses  were  unanimously  resolving  that 
a  fleet  and  army  ought  to  have  been  long  before  sent  to  Dublin, 
and  wondering  how  so  renowned  a  politician  as  His  Majesty 
could  have  been  duped  by  Hamilton  an  1  Tyrconnel,  a  gentle- 
man went  down  to  the  Temple  Stairs,  called  a  boat,  and  desir- 
ed to  be  pulled  to  Greenwich.  He  took  the  cover  of  a  letter 
from  his  pocket,  scratched  a  few  lines  with  a  pencil,  and  laid 
the  paper  on  the  seat  with  some  silver  for  his  fare.  As  the 
boat  passed  under  the  dark  central  arch  of  London  Bridge,  he 
sprang  into  the  water  and  disappeared.  It  was  found  that  he 
had  written  these  words  :  "  My  folly  in  undertaking  what  I 
could  not  execute  hath  done  the  King  great  prejudice  which 
cannot  be  stopped — No  easier  way  for  me  than  this — May  his 
undertaking  prosper — May  he  have  a  blessing."  There  was  no 
signature  :  but  the  body  was  soon  found,  and  proved  to  be  that 
of  John  Temple.  He  was  young  and  highly  accomplished  :  he 

*  Life  of  James  II.,  ii.  330  ;  Full  and  true  Account  of  the  Landing  and  Recep- 
tion, &c. ;  Ireland's  Lamentation. 


IG6  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

was  heir  to  an  honourable  name  :  he  was  united  to  an  amiable 
woman  :  he  was  possessed  of  an  ample  fortune  ;  and  he  hud  in 
prospect  the  greatest  honours  of  the  state.  It  does'  not  appear 
that  the  public  had  been  at  all  aware  to  what  an  extent  he  was 
answerable  for  the  policy  which  had  brought  so  much  obloquy 
on  the  government.  The  King,  stern  as  he  was,  had  far  too 
great  a  heart  to  treat  an  error  as  a  crime.  He  had  just  appoint- 
ed the  unfortunate  young  man  Secretary  at  War;  and  the  com- 
mission was  actually  preparing.  It  is  not  improbable  that  the 
cold  magnanimity  of  the  master  was  the  very  thing  which  made 
the  remorse  of  the  servant  insupportable.* 

But  great  as  were  the  vexations  which  William  had  to 
undergo,  those  by  which  the  temper  of  his  father-in-law  was  at 
this  time  tried  were  greater  still.  No  court  in  Europe  was  dis- 
tracted by  more  quarrels  and  intrigues  than  were  to  be  found 
within  the  walls  of  Dublin  Castle.  The  numerous  petty  cabals 
which  sprang  from  the  cupidity,  the  jealousy,  and  the  malevo- 
lence of  individuals  scarcely  deserve  mention.  But  there  was 
one  cause  of  discord  which  has  been  too  little  noticed,  and 
which  is  the  key  to  much  that  has  been  thought  mysterious  in 
the  history  of  those  times. 

Between  English  Jacobitism  and  Irish  Jacobitism  there  was 
nothing  in  common.  The  English  Jacobite  was  animated  by  a 
strong  enthusiasm  for  the  family  of  Stuart ;  and  in  his  zeal 
for  the  interests  of  that  family  he  too  often  forgot  the  interests 
of  the  state.  Victory,  peace,  prosperity,  seemed  evils  to  the 
stanch  nonjurer  of  our  island,  if  they  tended  to  make  usur- 
pation popular  and  permanent.  Defeat,  bankruptcy,  famine, 
invasion,  were,  in  his  view,  public  blessings,  if  they  increased 
the  chance  of  a  restoration.  He  would  rather  have  seen  his 
country  the  last  of  the  nations  under  James  the  Second  or  James 
the  Third,  than  the  mistress  of  the  sea,  the  umpire  between  coi.- 

*  Clarendon's  Diary  ;  Reresby's  Memoirs  ;  Luttrell's  Diary.  I  have  followed 
liuttrell's  version  of  Temple's  last  words.  It  agrees  in  substance  with  Claren- 
don's, but  lias  more  of  the  abruptness  natural  on  such  an  occasion.  If  anything 
could  make  so  tragical  an  event  ridiculous,  it  would  be  the  lamentation  of  the 
author  of  the  Londeriad. 

"  The  wretched  youth  against  his  friend  exclaims, 
Arid  iu  despair  drowns  himself  in  the  Thames." 


"WILLIAM   AND    MART.  167 

tending  potentates,  the  seat  of  arts,  the  hive  of  industry,  under 
a  Prince  of  the  House  of  Nassau  or  of  Brunswick. 

The  sentiments  of  the  Irish  Jacobite  were  very  different,  and, 
it  must  in  candour  be  acknowledged,  were  of  a  nobler  character. 
The  fallen  dynasty  was  nothing  to  him.  He  had  not,  like  a 
Cheshire  or  Shropshire  cavalier,  been  taught  from  his  cradle  to 
consider  loyalty  to  that  dynasty  as  the  first  duty  of  a  Christian 
and  a  gentleman.  All  his  family  traditions,  all  the  lessons 
taught  him  by  his  foster  mother  and  by  his  priests,  had  been  of 
a  very  different  tendency.  He  had  been  brought  up  to  regard 
the  foreign  sovereigns  of  his  native  land  with  the  feeling  with 
which  the  Jew  regarded  Caesar,  with  which  the  Scot  regarded 
Edward  the  First,  with  which  the  Castilian  regarded  Joseph 
Bonaparte,  with  which  the  Pole  regards  the  Autocrat  of  the 
Russias.  It  was  the  boast  of  tha  highborn  Milesian  that,  from 
the  twelfth  century  to  the  seventeenth,  every  generation  of  his 
family  had  been  in  arms  against  the  English  crown.  His  remote 
ancestors  had  contended  with  Fitzstephen  and  De  Burgh.  His 
greatgrandfather  had  cloven  down  the  soldiers  of  Elizabeth  in 
the  battle  of  the  Blackwater.  His  grandfather  had  conspired 
with  O'Donnel  against  James  the  First.  His  father  had  fought 
under  Sir  Phelim  O'Neilagainst  Charles  the  First.  The  confisca- 
tion of  the  family  estate  had  been  ratified  by  an  Act  of  Charles 
the  Second.  No  Puritan,  who  had  been  cited  before  the  High 
Commission  by  Laud,  who  had  charged  by  the  side  of  Cromwell 
at  Naseby,  who  had  been  prosecuted  under  the  Conventicle  Act, 
and  who  had  been  in  hiding  on  account  of  the  Rye  House  plot, 
bore  less  affection  to  the  House  of  Stuart  than  the  O'Haras  and 
Macmahons,  on  whose  support  the  fortunes  of  that  House  now 
seemed  to  depend. 

The  fixed  purpose  of  these  men  was  to  break  the  foreign 
yoke,  to  exterminate  the  Saxon  colony,  to  sweep  away  the 
Protestant  Church,  and  to  restore  the  soil  to  its  ancient  proprie- 
tors. To  obtain  these  ends  they  would  without  the  smallest 
scruple  hare  risen  up  against  James  ;  and  to  obtain  these  ends 
they  rose  up  for  him.  The  Irish  Jacobites,  therefore,  were 
not  at  all  desirous  that  he  should  agaiu  reign  at  Whitehall :  for 


1G8  HISTOUY    OF    ENGLAND. 

they  were  perfectly  aware  that  a  Sovereign  of  Ireland,  who 
was  also  Sovereign  of  England,  would  not,  and,  even  if  he 
would,  could  not,  long  administer  the  government  of  the  smaller 
and  poorer  kingdom  in  direct  opposition  to  the  feeling  of  the 
larger  and  richer.  Their  real  wish  was  that  the  crowns  might 
be  completely  separated,  and  that  their  island  might,  whether 
with  James  or  without  James  they  cared  little,  form  a  distinct 
state  under  the  powerful  protection  of  France. 

While  one  party  in  the  Council  at  Dublin  regarded  James 
merely  as  a  tool  to  be  employed  for  achieving  the  deliverance 
of  Ireland,  another  party  regarded  Ireland  merely  as  a  tool  to 
be  employed  for  effecting  the  restoration  of  James.  To  the 
English  and  Scotch  lords  and  gentlemen  who  had  accompanied 
him  from  Brest,  the  island  in  which  they  now  sojourned  was 
merely  a  stepping  stone  by  which  they  were  to  reach  Great 
Britain.  They  were  still  as  much  exiles  as  when  they  were 
at  Saint  Germains  ;  and  indeed  they  thought  Saint  Germains 
a  far  more  pleasant  place  of  exile  than  Dublin  Castle.  They 
had  no  sympathy  with  the  native  population  of  the  remote  and 
half  barbarous  region  to  which  a  strange  chance  had  led  them. 
Nay,  they  wero  bound  by  common  extraction  and  by  common 
language  to  that  colony  which  it  was  the  chief  object  of  the 
native  population  to  root  out.  They  had  indeed,  like  the  great 
body  of  their  countrymen,  always  regarded  the  aboriginal  Irish 
with  very  unjust  contempt,  as  inferior  to  other  European  nations, 
not  only  in  acquired  knowledge,  but  in  natural  intelligence  and 
courage,  as  born  Gibeonites  who  had  been  liberally  treated  in 
being  permitted  to  hew  wood  and  to  draw  water  for  a  wiser 
and  mightier  people.  These  Politicians  also  thought, — and 
here  they  were  undoubtedly  in  the  right, — that,  if  their  master's 
object  was  to  recover  the  throne  of  England,  it  would  be  mad- 
ness in  him  to  give  himself  up  to  the  guidance  of  the  O's  and 
the  Macs  who  regarded  England  with  mortal  enmity.  A  law 
declaring  the  crown  of  Ireland  independent,  a  law  transferring 
mitres,  glebes,  and  tithes  from  the  Protestant  to  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  a  law  transferring  ten  millions  of  acres  from 
Saxons  to  Celts,  would  doubtless  be  loudly  applauded  in  Clare 


WILLIAM  AND   MARY.  169 

and  Tipperary.  But  what  would  be  the  effect  of  such  laws  at 
Westminster  ?  What  at  Oxford  ?  It  would  be  poor  policy  to 
alienate  such  men  as  Clarendon  and  Beaufort,  Ken  and  Sher- 
lock, in  order  to  obtain  the  applause  of  the  Rapparees  of  the 
Bog  of  i  Allen.* 

Thus  the  English  and  Irish  factions  in  the  Council  at  Dub- 
lin were  engaged  in  a  dispute  which  admitted  of  no  compromise. 
Avaux  meanwhile  looked  on  that  dispute  from  a  point  of  view 
entirely  his  own.  His  object  was  neither  the  emancipation  cf 
Ireland  nor  the  restoration  of  James,  but  the  greatness  of  the 
French  monarchy.  In  what  way  that  object  might  be  best 
attained  was  a  very  complicated  problem.  Undoubtedly  a 
French  statesman  could  not  but  wish  for  a  counterrevolution 
in  England.  The  effect  of  such  a  counterrevolution  would 
be  that  the  power  which  was  the  most  formidable  enemy 
of  France  would  become  her  firmest  ally,  that  William  would 
sink  into  insignificance,  and  that  the  European  coalition  of 
which  he  was  the  chief  would  be  dissolved.  But  what  chance 
was  there  of  such  a  counterrevolution  ?  The  English  exiles 
indeed,  after  the  fashion  of  exiles,  confidently  anticipated  a 
speedy  return  to  their  country.  James  himself  loudly  boasted 
that  his  subjects  on  the  other  side  of  the  water,  though  they 
had  been  misled  for  a  moment  by  the  specious  names  of  reli- 
gion, liberty,  and  property,  were  warmly  attached  to  him,  and 
would  rally  round  him  as  soon  as  he  appeared  among  them. 
But  the  wary  envoy  tried  in  vain  to  discover  any  foundation 
for  these  hopes.  He  could  not  find  that  they  were  warranted 
by  any  intelligence  which  had  arrived  from  any  part  of  Great 
Britain  ;  and  he  was  inclined  to  consider  them  as  the  mere 
daydreams  of  a  feeble  mind.  He  thought  it  unlikely  that  the 
usurper,  whose  ability  and  resolution  he  bad,  during  an  unin- 
termitted  conflict  of  ten  years,  learned  to  appreciate,  would 
easily  part  with  the  great  prize  which  had  been  won  by  such 
strenuous  exertions  and  profound  combinations.  It  was  there- 

*  Much  lighv  Is  thrown  on  the  dispute  between  the  English  and  Irish  parties 
in  James's  council,  by  a  remarkable  letter  of  Bishop  Ma'oney  to  Bishop  Tyrrel, 
which  will  he  found  in  the  Appendix  to  King's  State  of  the  Protestants. 


170  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

fore  necessary  to  consider  what  arrangements  would  be  most 
beneficial  to  France,  on  the  supposition  that  it  proved  impossible 
to  dislodge  William  from  England.  And  it  was  evident  that,  if 
William  could  not  be  dislodged  from  England,  the  arrangement 
most  beneficial  to  France  would  be  that  which  had  been  qontem- 
plated  eighteen  months  before  when  James  had  no  prospect  of 
a  male  heir.  Ireland  must  be  severed  from  the  English  crown, 
purged  of  the  English  colonists,  reunited  to  the  Church  of 
Rome,  placed  under  the  protection  of  the  House  of  Bourbon, 
and  made,  in  everything  but  name,  a  French  province.  In  war, 
her  resources  would  be  absolutely  at  the  command  of  her  Lord 
Paramount.  She  would  furnish  his  army  with  recruits.  She 
would  furnish  his  navy  with  fine  harbours  commanding  all  the 
great-western  outlets  of  the  English  trade.  The  strong  national 
and  religious  antipathy  with  which  her  aboriginal  population, 
regarded  the  inhabitants  of  the  neighbouring  island  would  be  a 
sufficient  guarantee  for  their  fidelity  to  that  government  which 
could  alone  protect  her  against  the  Saxon. 

On  the  whole,  therefore,  it  appeared  to  Avaux  that,  of  the 
two  parties  into  which  the  Council  at  Dublin  was  divided,  the 
Irish  party  was  that  which  it  was  at  present  for  the  interest  of 
France  to  support.  He  accordingly  connected  himself  closely 
with  the  chiefs  of  that  party,  obtained  from  them  the  fullest 
avowals  of  all  that  they  designed,  and  was  soon  able  to  report  to 
his  government  that  neither  the  gentry  nor  the  common  people 
were  at  all  unwilling  to  become  French.* 

The  views  of  Louvois,  incomparably  the  greatest  statesman 
that  France  had  produced  since  Richelieu,  seem  to  have  entirely 
agreed  with  those  of  Avaux.  The  best  thing,  Louvois  wrote, 
that  King  James  could  do  would  be  to  forget  that  he  had  reigned 
in  Great  Britain,  and  to  think  only  of  putting  Ireland  into  a 
good  condition,  and  of  establishing  himself  firmly  there.  Whether 
this  were  the  true  interest  of  the  House  of  Stuart  may  be 


*  Avaux,  ^"^  25'  1689,  April  13-23.    But  it  is  less  from  any  single  letter,  than 

from  the  whole  tendency  and  spirit  of  the  correspondence  of  Avaux,  that  i  have 
formed  vny  uotioa  of  his  objects. 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY  171 

doubted.  But  it  was  undoubtedly  the  true  interest  of  the  House 
of  Bourbon.* 

About  the  Scotch  and  English  exiles,  ard  especially  about 
Melfort,  Avaux  constantly  expressed  himself  with  an  asperity 
hardly  to  have  been  expected  from  a  man  of  so  much  sense  and 
so  much  knowledge  of  the  world.  Melfo"rt  was  in  a  singularly 
unfortunate  position.  He  was  a  renegade :  he  was  a  mortal 
enemy  of  the  liberties  of  his  country  :  he  was  of  a  bad  and 
tyrannical  nature ;  and  yet  he  was,  in  some  sense,  a  patriot.  The 
consequence  was  that  lie  was  more  universally  detested  than  any 
man  of  his  time.  For,  while  his  apostasy  and  his  arbitrary 
maxims  of  government  made  him  the  abhorrence  of  England 
and  Scotland,  his  anxiety  for  the  dignity  and  integrity  of  the 
empire  made  him  the  abhorrence  of  the  Irish  and  of  the 
French. 

The  first  question  to  be  decided  was  whether  James  should 
remain  at  Dublin,  or  should  put  himself  at  the  head  of  his  army 
in  Ulster.  On  this  question  the  Irish  and  British  factions  joined 
battle.  Reasons  of  no  great  weight  were  adduced  on  both  sides ; 
for  neither  party  ventured  to  speak  out.  The  point  really  in 
issue  was  whether  the  King  should  be  in  Irish  or  in  British 
hands.  If  he  remained  at  Dublin,  it  would  be  scarcely  possible 
for  him  to  withhold  his  assent  from  any  bill  presented  to  him  by 
the  Parliament  which  he  had  summoned  to  meet  there.  He 
would  be  forced  to  plunder,  perhaps  to  attaint,  innocent  Protest- 
ant gentlemen  and  clergymen  by  hundreds ;  and  he  would  thus 
do  irreparable  mischief  to  his  cause  on  the  other  side  of  Saint 
George's  Channel.  If  he  repaired  to  Ulster,  he  would  be  with- 
in a  few  hours'  sail  of  Great  Britain.  As  soon  as  Londonderry 
had  fallen,  and  it  was  universally  supposed  that  the  fall  of 
Londonderry  could  not  be  long  delayed,  he  might  cross  the  sea 
with  part  of  his  forces,  and  land  in  Scotland,  where  his  friends 
were  supposed  to  be  numerous.  When  he  was  once  on  British 
ground,  and  in  the  midst  of  British  adherents,  it  would  no  longer 

*  "  II  faut  done,  oubliant  qu'il  a  este  Roy  d'Angleterre  et  d'Eseosse,  Tie  pen- 
ser  qti'ace  qui  peut  bonifler  1'Irlande,  et  luy  faciliter  les  moyens  d'y  subsister." 
— Louvois  to  Avaux,  June  3-13, 1689. 


172  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

be  in  the  power  of  the  Irish  to  extort  his  consent  to  their  schemes 
of  spoliation  and  revenge. 

The  discussions  in  the  Council  were  long  and  warm.  Tyr- 
conuel,  who  had  just  been  created  a  Duke,  advised  his  master  to 
stay  at  Dublin.  Melfort  exhorted  His  Majesty  to  set  out  for 
Ulster.  Avaux  exerted  all  his  influence  in  support  of  Tyrconnel  j 
but  James,  whose  personal  inclinations  were  naturally  on  the 
British  side  of  the  question,  determined  to  follow  the  advice  of 
Melfort.*  Avaux  was  deeply  mortified.  In  his  official  letters 
he  expressed  with  great  acrimony  his  contempt  for  tha  King's 
character  and  understanding.  On  Tyrconnel,  who  had  said  that 
he  despaired  of  the  fortunes  of  James,  and  that  the  real  question 
was  between  the  King  of  France  and  the  Prince  of  Orange,  the 
ambassador  pronounced  what  was  meant  to  be  a  warm  eulogy, 
but  may  perhaps  be  more  properly  called  an  invective.  "  If  he 
were  a  born  Frenchman,  he  could  not  be  more  zealous  for  the 
interests  of  France."  f  The  conduct  of  Melfort,  on  the  other 
hand,  was  the  subject  of  an  invective  which  much  resembles 
eulogy  :  "  He  is  neither  a  good  Irishman  nor  a  good  French- 
man. All  his  affections  are  set  on  his  own  country."  | 

Since  the  King  was  determined  to  go  northward,  Avaux  did 
not  choose  to  be  left  behind.  The  royal  party  set  out,  leaving 
Tyrconnel  in  charge  at  Dublin,  and  arrived  at  Charlemont  on 
the  thirteenth  of  April.  The  journey  was  a  strange  one.  The 
country  all  along  the  road  had  been  completely  deserted  by  the 
industrious  population,  and  laid  waste  by  bands  of  robbers. 
"  This,"  said  one  of  the  French  officers,  "is  like  travelling 
through  the  deserts  of  Arabia."  §  Whatever  effects  the  colo- 
nists had  been  able  to  remove  were  at  Londonderry  or  Enniskil- 
len.  The  rest  had  been  stolen  or  destroyed.  Avaux  informed 
his  Court  that  he  had  not  been  able  to  get  one  truss  of  hay  for 
his  horses  without  sending  five  or  six  miles.  No  labourer  dared 
bring  anything  for  sale  lest  some  marauder  should  lay  hands  on 
it  by  the  way.  The  ambassador  was  put  one  night  into  a  rnis- 

*  See  the  despatches  written  by  Avaux  during  April  1689  ;  Light  to  the  Blind, 
t  Avaux,  April  6-16, 1689.  }  Avaux,  May  8-18,  1689. 

§  Pusignau  to  Avaux,  ^J11^1™'  1689. 

April  *l, 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  173 

erable  taproom  full  of  soldiers  smoking,  another  night  into  a  dis* 
mantled  house  without  windows  or  shutters  to  keep  out  the  rain. 
At  Charlemont,  a  bag  of  oatmeal  was,  with  great  difficulty,  and 
as  a  matter  of  favour,  procured  for  the  French  legation.  There 
was  no  wheaten  bread  except  at  the  table  of  the  King,  who  had 
brought  a  little  flour  from  Dublin,  and  to  whom  Avaux  had  lent 
a  servant  who  knew  how  to  bake.  Those  who  were  honoured 
with  an  invitation  to  the  royal  table  had  their  bread  and  wine 
measured  out  to  them.  Everybody  else,  however  high  in  rank, 
ate  horsecorn,  and  drank  water  or  detestable  beer,  made  with 
oats  instead  of  barley,  and  flavoured  with  some  nameless  herb  as 
a  substitute  for  hops.*  Yet  report  said  that  the  country  between 
Charlemont  and  Strabane  was  even  more  desolate  than  the  coun- 
try between  Dublin  and  Charlemont.  It  was  impossible  to  carry 
a  large  stock  of  provisions.  The  roads  were  so  bad,  and  the 
horses  so  weak,  that  the  baggage  waggons  had  all  been  left  far 
behind.  The  chief  officers  of  the  army  were  consequently  in  want 
of  necessaries  ;  and  the  ill  humour  which  was  the  natural  effect  of 
*<hese  privations  was  increased  by  the  insensibility  of  James, 
who  seemed  not  to  be  aware  that  everybody  about  him  was  not 
perfectly  comfortable.f 

On  the  fourteenth  of  April  the  King  and  his  train  proceeded 
to  Omagh.  The  rain  fell :  the  wind  blew :  the  horses  could 
scarcely  make  their  way  through  the  mud,  and  in  the  face  of  the 
storm  ;  and  the  road  was  frequently  intersected  by  torrents 
which  might  almost  be  called  rivers.  The  travellers  had  to  pass 
several  fords  where  the  water  was  breast  high.  Some  of  the 
party  fainted  from  fatigue  and  hunger.  All  around  lay  a  fright- 
ful wilderness.  In  a  journey  of  forty  miles  Avaux  counted  only 
three  miserable  cabins.  Everything  else  was  rock,  bog,  and 
moor.  When  at  length  the  travellers  reached  Omagh,  they 
found  it  in  ruins.  The  Protestants,  who  were  the  majority  of 
the  inhabitants,  had  abandoned  it,  leaving  not  a  wisp  of  straw 
nor  a  cask  of  liquor.  The  windows  had  been  broken  :  the 

*  This  lamentable  account  of  the  Irish  beer  is  taken  from  a  despatch  which 
Desgrigny  wrote  from  Cork  to  Louvois,  and  which  is  ill  the  archives  of  the 
French  War  Office. 

t  ATSUX,  April  13-23,  1689  ;  April  20-30. 


174  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

chimneys  had  been  beaten  in :  the  very  locks  and  bolts  of  th& 
doors  had  been  carried  away.* 

Avaux  had  never  ceased  to  press  the  King  to  return  to  Dub- 
lin :  but  these  expostulations  had  hitherto  produced  no  effect. 
The  obstinacy  of  James,  however,  was  an  obstinacy  which  had 
nothing  in  common  with  manly  resolution,  and  which,  though 
proof  to  argument,  was  easily  shaken  by  caprice.  He  received 
at  Omagh,  early  on  the  sixteenth  of  April,  letters  which  alarmed 
him.  He  learned  that  a  strong  body  of  Protestants  was  in  arms 
at  Strabane,  and  that  English  ships  of  war  had  been  seen  near 
the  mouth  of  Lough  Foyle.  In  one  minute  three  messages  were 
sent  to  summon  Avaux  to  the  ruinous  chamber  in  which  the  royal 
bed  had  been  prepared.  There  James,  half  dressed,  and  with 
the  air  of  a  man  bewildered  by  some  great  shock,  announced 
his  resolution  to  hasten  back  instantly  to  Dublin.  Avaux  lis- 
tened, wondered,  and  approved.  Melfort  seemed  prostrated  by 
despair.  The  travellers  retraced  their  steps,  and,  late  in  the 
evening,  got  back  to  Charlemont.  There  the  King  received 
despatches  very  different  from  those  which  had  terrified  him 
a  few  hours  before.  The  Protestants  who  had  assembled 
near  Strabane  had  been  attacked  by  Hamilton.  Under  a  true- 
hearted  leader  they  would  doubtless  have  stood  their  ground. 
But  Lundy,  who  commanded  them,  had  told  them  that  all  was 
lost,  had  ordered  them  to  shift  for  themselves,  and  had  set  them 
the  example  of  flight.f  They  had  accordingly  retired  in  confu- 
sion to  Londonderry.  The  King's  correspondents  pronounced 
it  to  be  impossible  that  Londonderry  should  hold  out.  His 
Majesty  had  only  to  appear  before  the  gates  ;  and  they  would 
instantly  fly  open.  James  now  changed  his  mind  again,  blamed 
himself  for  having  been  persuaded  to  turn  his  face  southward, 
and,  though  it  was  late  in  the  evening,  called  for  his  horses. 
The  horses  were  in  miserable  plight;  but,  weary  and  half  starved 
as  they  were,  they  were  saddled.  Melfort,  completely  victor- 
ious, carried  off  his  master  to  the  camp.  Avaux,  after  remon- 
strating to  no  purpose,  declared  that  he  was  resolved  to  return 

*  Avaux  to  Lewis,  April  15-25,  1689,  and  to  Louvois,-of  the  same  date. 
\  Commons'  Journal*,  Aug.  12,  1689;  Mackenzie's  Narrative. 


WILLIAM   AND    MAKT.  175 

to  Dublin.  It  may  be  suspected  that  the  extreme  discomfort 
which  he  had  undergone  had  something  to  do  with  this  resolu- 
tion. For  complaints  of  that  discomfort  make  up  a  large  part 
of  his  letters  ;  and,  in  truth,  a  life  passed  in  the  palaces  of  Italy* 
in  the  neat  parlours  and  gardens  of  Holland,  and  in  the  luxuri- 
ous pavilions  which  adorned  the  suburbs  of  Paris,  was  a  bad 
preparation  for  the  ruined  hovels  of  Ulster.  He  gave,  however, 
to  his  master  a  more  weighty  reason  for  refusing  to  proceed 
northward.  The  journey  of  James  had  been  undertaken  in  op- 
position to  the  unanimous  sense  of  the  Irish,  and  had  excited 
great  alarm  among  them.  They  apprehended  that  he  maaut  to 
quit  them,  and  to  make  a  descent  on  Scotland.  They  knew  that 
once  landed  in  Great  Britain,  he  would  have  neither  tho  will, 
nor  the  power  to  do  those  things  which  they  most  desired. 
Avaux,  by  refusing  to  proceed  further,  gave  them  an  assurance 
that,  whoevever  might  betray  them,  France  would  be  their  con- 
stant friend.* 

While  Avaux  was  on  his  way  to  Dublin,  James  hastened  to- 
wards Londonderry.  He  found  his  army  concentrated  a  few 
miles  south  of  the  city.  The  French  generals  who  had  sailed 
with  him  from  Brest  were  in  his  train  ;  and  two  of  them,  Rosen 
and  Maumont,  were  placed  aver  tho  head  of  Richard  Hamilton.! 
Rosen  was  a  native  of  Livonia,  who  had  in  early  youth  become 
a  soldier  of  fortune,  who  had  fought  his  way  to  distinction,  and 
who,  though  utterly  destitute  of  the  graces  and  accomplishments 
characteristic  of  the  court  of  Versailles,  was  nevertheless  high 
in  favour  there.  His  temper  Was  savage :  his  manners  were 
coarse :  his  language  was  a  strange  jargon  compounded  of  vari- 
ous dialects  of  French  and  German.  Even  those  who  thought 
best  of  him.  and  who  maintained  that  his  rough  exterior  covered 
some  good  qualities,  owned  that  his  looks  were  against  him,  and 
that  it  would  be  unpleasant  to  meet  such  a  figure  in  the  dusk  at 
the  corner  of  a  wood.J  The  little  that  is  known  of  Maumout 
is  to  his  honour. 

*  Avaux,  April  17-27,  1P89.    The  story  of  these  strange  changes  of  purpose  is 
told  very  disingenuously  by  James  in  his  Life,  ii.  330,  331,  3oi.    Orig.  Meui. 
t  Life  of  Jan.es,  ii.  334,  3C5.    Orig.  Mem. 
t  Memoirs  of  Saint  Simon.    Some  English  writers  iguorantly  speak  of  Rosen 


176  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

In  the  camp  it  was  generally  expected  that  Londonderry  would 
fall  without  a  blow.  Rosen  confidently  predicted  that  the 
mere  sight  of  the  Irish  army  would  terrify  the  garrison  into  sub- 
mission. But  Richard  Hamilton,  who  knew  the  temper  of  the 
colonists  better,  had  misgivings.  The  assailants  were  sure  of 
one  important  ally  within  the  walls.  Lundy,  the  Governor, 
professed  the  Protestant  religion  and  had  joined  in  proclaim- 
ing William  and  Mary ;  but  he  was  in  secrect  communication 
with  the  enemies  of  his  Church  and  of  the  Sovereigns  to  whom 
he  had  sworn  fealty.  Some  have  suspected  that  he  was  a  con- 
cealed Jacobite,  and  that  he  had  affected  to  acquiesce  in  the 
Revolution  only  in  order  that  he  might  be  better  able  to  assist 
in  bringing  about  a  Restoration  :  but  it  is  probable  that  his  con- 
duct is  rather  to  be  attributed  to  faintheartedness  and  poverty  of 
spirit  than  to  zeal  for  any  public  cause.  He  seems  to  have 
thought  resistance  hopeless ;  arid  in  truth,  to  a  military  eye,  the 
defences  of  Londonderry  appeared  contemptible.  The  fori'- 
fications  consisted  of  a  simple  wall  overgrown  with  grass  and 
weeds :  there  was  no  ditch  even  before  the  gates :  the  draw- 
bridges had  long  been  neglected  :  the  chains  were  rusty  and 
could  scarcely  be  used:  the  parapets  and  towers  were  Luilt 
after  a  fashion  that  might  well  move  disciples  of  Vauban  to 
laughter ;  and  these  feeble  defences  were  on  almost  every  side 
commanded  by  heights.  Indeed  those  who  laid  out  the  city 
had  never  meant  that  it  should  be  able  to  stand  a  regular  siege, 
and  had  contented  themselves  with  throwing  up  works  sufficient 
to  protect  the  inhabitants  against  a  tumultuary  attack  of  the 
Celtic  peasantry.  Avaux  assured  Louvois  that  a  single  French 
battalion  would  easily  storm  such  a  fastness.  Even  if  the  place 
should,  notwithstanding  all  disadvantages,  be  able  to  repel  a 
large  army  directed  by  the  science  and  experience  of  generals 
who  had  served  under  Conde  and  Turenne,  hunger  must  soon 
bring  the  contest  to  an  end.  The  stock  of  provisions  was  small ; 
and  the  population  had  been  swollen  to  seven  or  eight  times  the 

as  having  been,  at  this  time,  a  Marshal  of  France.  He  did  not  become  so  till 
1703.  He  had  long  been  a  Marechal  de  Camp,  which  is  a  very  different  thing,  and 
oad  been  recently  promoted  to  the  rank  of  Lieutenant  General. 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  177 

ordinary  number  by  a  multitude  of  colonists  flying  from  the 
rage  of  the  natives.* 

Lundy,  therefore,  from  the  time  when  the  Irish  army  en- 
tered Ulster,  seems  to  have  given  up  all  thought  of  serious  re- 
sistance. He  talked  so  despondingly  that  the  citizens  and 
his  own  soldiers  murmured  against  him.  He  seemed,  they  said, 
to  be  bent  on  discouraging  them.  Meanwhile  the  enemy  drew 
daily  nearer  and  nearer  ;  and  it  was  known  that  James  himself 
was  coming  to  take  the  command  of  his  forces. 

Just  at  this  moment  a  glimpse  of  hope  appeared.  On  the 
fourteenth  of  April  ships  from  England  anchored  in  the  bay. 
They  had  on  board  two  regiments  which  had  been  sent,  under 
the  command  of  a  Colonel  named  Cunningham,  to  reinforce 
the  garrison.  Cunningham  and  several  of  his  officers  went  on 
shore  and  conferred  with  Lundy.  Lundy  dissuaded  them  from 
landing  their  men.  The  place,  he  said,  could  not  hold  out.  To 
throw  more  troops  into  it  would  therefore  be  worse  than  use- 
less :  for  the  more  numerous  the  garrison,  the  more  prisoners 
would  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy.  The  best  thing  that 
the  two  regiments  could  do  would  be  to  sail  back  to  England. 
He  meant,  he  said,  to  withdraw  himself  privately  ;  and  the  in- 
habitants must  then  try  to  make  good  terms  for  themselves. 

He  went  through  the  form  of  holding  a  council  of  war,  but 
from  this  council  he  excluded  all  those  officers  of  the  garrison 
whose  sentiments  he  knew  to  be  different  from  his  own.  Some 
who  had  ordinarily  been  summoned  on  such  occasions,  and  who 
now  came  uninvited,  were  thrust  out  of  the  room.  "Whatever 
the  Governor  said  was  echoed  by  his  creatures.  Cunningham 
and  Cunningham's  companions  could  scarcely  venture  to  oppose 
their  opinion  to  that  of  a  person  whose  local  knowledge  was 
necessarily  far  superior  to  theirs,  and  whom  they  were  by  their 
instructions  directed  to  obey.  One  brave  soldier  murmured. 
« Understand  this,"  he  said:  "to  give  up  Londonderry  is  to 
give  up  Ireland."  But  his  objections  were  contemptuously 

*  Avaux,  April  4-14,  1689.  Among  the  MSS.  in  the  British  Museum  is  a 
curious  report  on  the  defences  of  Londonderry,  drawn  up  in  1705  for  the  Duke  of 
Ormond  by  a  French  engineer  named  Thomas. 

VOL.  III.— 12 


178  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

overruled.*  The  meeting  broke  up.  Cunningham  and  his 
officers  returned  to  the  ships,  and  made  preparations  for  depart- 
ing. Meanwhile  Lundy  privately  sent  a  messenger  to  the  head 
quarters  of  the  enemy,  with  assurances  that  the  city  should  be 
peaceably  surrendered  on  the  first  summons.  . 

But  as  soon  as  what  had  passed  in  the  council  of  war  was 
whispered  about  the  streets,  the  spirit  of  the  soldiers  and  citi- 
zens swelled  up  high  and  fierce  against  the  dastardly  and  per- 
fidious chief  who  had  betrayed  them.  Many  of  his  own  officers 
declared  that  they  no  longer  thought  themselves  bound  to  obey 
him.  Voices  were  heard  threatening,  some  that  his  brains 
should  be  blown  out,  some  that  he  should  be  hanged  on  the 
walls.  A  deputation  was  sent  to  Cunningham  imploring  him 
to  assume  the  command.  He  excused  himself  on  the  plausible 
ground  that  his  orders  were  to  take  directions  in  all  things  from 
the  Governor.*  Meanwhile  it  was  rumoured  that  the  persons 
most  in  Lundy's  confidence  were  stealing  out  of  the  town  one 
by  one.  Long  after  dusk  on  the  evening  of  the  seventeenth  it 
was  found  that  the  gates  were  open  and  that  the  keys  had  dis- 
appeared. The  officers  who  made  the  discovery  took  on  them- 
selves to  change  the  passwords  and  to  double  the  guards.  The 
night,  however,  passed  over  without  any  assault,  f 

After  some  anxious  hours  the  day  broke.  The  Irish,  with 
James  at  their  head,  were  now  within  four  miles  of  the  city. 
A  tumultuous  council  of  the  chief  inhabitants  was  called.  Some 
of  them  vehemently  reproached  the  Governor  to  his  face  with 
his  treachery.  He  had  sold  them,  they  cried,  to  their  deadliest 
enemy :  he  had  refused  admission  to  the  force  which  good  King 
William  had  sent  to  defend  them.  While  the  altercation  was 
at  the  height,  the  sentinels  who  paced  the  ramparts  announced 
that  the  vanguard  of  the  hostile  army  was  in  sight.  Lundy 
had  given  orders  that  there  should  be  no  firing  :  but  his  author- 
ity was  at  an  end.  Two  gallant  soldiers,  Major  Henry  Baker 

*  Commons'  Journals,  August  12, 1689. 

*  The  best  history  of  these  transactions  will  be  found  in  tho  Journals  of  the 
House  ot  Commons,  August  12,  1689.    See  also  the  narratives  of  Walker  and 
Mackenzie. 

•*  Mackenzie's  Narrative. 


•WILLIAM:  AND  MART.  179 

and  Captain  Adam  Murray,  called  the  people  to  arms.  They 
were  assisted  by  the  eloquence  of  an  aged  clergyman,  George 
Walker,  rector  of  the  parish  of  Donaghmore,  who  had,  with 
many  of  his  neighbours,  taken  refuge  in  Londonderry.  The 
whole  crowded  city  was  moved  by  one  impulse.  Soldiers,  gen- 
tlemen, yeomen,  artisans,  rushed  to  the  walls  and  manned  the 
guns.  James,  who,  confident  of  success,  had  approached  within 
a  hundred  yards  of  the  southern  gate,  was  received  with  a  shout 
of  "  No  surrender,"  and  with  a  fire  from  the  nearest  bastion. 
An  officer  of  his  staff  fell  dead  by  his  side.  The  King  and  his 
attendants  made  all  haste  to  get  out  of  reach  of  the  cannon 
balls.  Lundy,  who  was  now  in  imminent  danger  of  being  torn 
limb  from  limb  by  those  whom  he  had  betrayed,  hid  himself  in 
an  inner  chamber.  There  he  lay  during  the  day,  and,  with  the 
generous  and  politic  connivance  of  Murray  and  Walker,  made 
his  escape  at  night  in  the  disguise  of  a  porter.*  The  part  of 
the  wall  from  which  he  let  himself  down  is  still  pointed  out ; 
and  people  still  living  talk  of  having  tasted  the  fruit  of  a  pear 
tree  which  assisted  him  in  his  descent.  His  name  is,  to  this  dajr, 
held  in  execration  by  the  Protestants  of  the  North  of  Ireland ; 
and  his  effigy  is  still  annually  hung  and  burned  by  them  with 
marks  of  abhorrence  similar  to  those  which  in  England  are 
appropriated  to  Guy  Faux. 

And  now  Londonderry  was  left  destitute  of  all  military  and 
of  all  civil  government.  No  man  in  the  town  had  a  right  to 
command  'any  other  :  the  defences  were  weak  ;  the  provisions 
were  scanty  :  an  incensed  tyrant  and  a  great  army  wero  at  the 
gates.  But  within  was  that  which  has  often,  in  desperate  ex- 
tremities, retrieved  the  fallen  fortunes  of  nations.  Betrayed, 
deserted,  disorganised,  unprovided  with  resources,  begirt  with 
enemies,  the  noble  city  was  still  no  easy  conquest.  Whatever 
an  engineer  might  think  of  the  strength  of  the  ramparts,  all 
that  was  most  intelligent,  most  courageous,  most  highspirited 
among  the  Englishry  of  Leinster  and  of  Northern  Ulster  was 
crowded  behind  them.  The  number  of  men  capable  of  bearing 
arms  within  the  walls  was  seven  thousand ;  and  the  whola 
*  "Walker  arid  Mackenzie. 


180  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

world  could  not  have  furnished  seven  thousand  men  better  qual- 
ified to  meet  a  terrible  emergency  with  clear  judgment,  daunt- 
less valour,  and  stubborn  patience.  They  were  all  zealous 
Protestants  ;  and  the  Protestantism  of  the  majority  was  tinged 
with  Puritanism.  They  had  much  in  common  with  that  sober, 
resolute,  and  Godfearing  class  out  of  which  Cromwell  had 
formed  his  unconquerable  army.  But  the  peculiar  situation  in 
which  they  had  been  placed  had  developed  in  them  some  quali- 
ties which,  in  the  mother  country,  might  possibly  have  remained 
latent.  The  English  inhabitants  of  Ireland  were  an  aristocratic 
caste,  which  had  been  enabled,  by  superior  civilization,  by  close 
union,  by  sleepless  vigilance,  by  cool  intrepidity,  to  keep  in 
subjection  a  numerous  and  hostile  population.  Almost  every 
one  of  them  had  been  in  some  measure  trained  both  to  military 
and  to  political  functions.  Almost  every  one  was  familiar  with 
the  use  of  arms,  and  was  accustomed  to  bear  a  part  in  the 
administration  of  justice.  It  was  remarked  by  contemporary 
writers  that  the  colonists  had  something  of  the  Castilian  haughti- 
ness of  manner,  though  none  of  the  Castilian  indolence,  that 
they  spoke  English  with  remarkable  purity  and  correctness,  and 
that  they  were,  both  as  militiamen  and  as  jurymen,  superior  to 
their  kindred  in  the  mother  country.*  In  all  ages,  men  situated 
as  the  Auglosaxons  in  Ireland  were  situated  have  had  peculiar 
vices  and  peculiar  virtues,  the  vices  and  virtues  of  masters,  as 
opposed  to  the  vices  and  virtues  of  slaves.  The  member  of  a 
dominant  race  is,  in  his  dealings  with  the  subject  race,  seldom 
indeed  fraudulent, — for  fraud  is  the  resource  of  the  weak, — 
but  imperious,  insolent,  and  cruel.  Towards  his  brethren,  on 
the  other  hand,  his  conduct  is  generally  just,  kind,  and  even 
noble.  His  selfrespect  leads  him  to  respect  all  who  belong  to 
his  own  order.  His  interest  impels  him  to  cultivate  a  good  under- 
standing with  those  whose  prompt,  strenuous,  and  courageous 
assistance  may  at  any  moment  be  necessary  to  preserve  his 
property  and  life.  It  is  a  truth  ever  present  to  his  mind  that 
his  own  wellbeing  depends  on  the  ascendency  of  the  class  to 

*  See  the  Character  of  the  Protestants  of  Ireland,  1689,  and  the  Interests  of 
England  in  the  Preservation  of  Ireland,  1R89.  The  former  pamphlet  is  the  work 
of  an  euemy,  the  latter  of  a  zealous  friend. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  181 

which  he  belongs.  His  very  selfishness  therefore  is  sublimed 
into  public  spirit :  and  this  public  spirit  is  stimulated  to  fierce 
enthusiasm  by  sympathy,  by  the  desire  of  applause,  and  by  the 
dread  of  infamy.  For  the  only  opinion  which  he  values  is  the 
opinion  of  his  fellows;  and  in  their  opinion  devotion  to  the 
c  nnmon  cause  is  the  most  sacred  of  duties.  The  character,  thus 
formed,  has  two  aspects.  Seen  on  one  side,  it  must  be  regarded 
by  every  well  constituted  mind  with  disapprobation.  Seen  on 
the  other,  it  irresistibly  extorts  applause.  The  Spartan,  smit- 
ing and  spurning  the  wretched  Helot,  moves  our  disgust.  But 
the  same  Spartan,  calmly  dressing  his  hair,  and  uttering  his 
concise  jests,  on  what  he  well  knows  to  be  his  last  day,  in 
the  pass  of  Thermopylae,  is  not  to  be  contemplated  without  ad- 
miration. To  a  superficial  observer  it  may  seem  strange  that 
so  much  evil  and  so  much  good  should  be  found  together.  But 
in  truth  the  good  and  the  evil,  which  at  first  sight  appear  almost 
incompatible,  are  closely  connected,  and  have  a  common  origin. 
It  was  because  the  Spartan  had  been  taught  to  revere  himself 
as  one  of  a  race  of  sovereigns,  and  to  look  down  on  all  that 
was  not  Spartan  as  of  an  inferior  species,  that  he  had  no  fellow 
feeling  for  the  miserable  serfs  who  crouched  before  him,  and 
that  the  thought  of  submitting  to  a  foreign  master,  or  of  turn- 
ing his  back  before  an  enemy,  never,  even  in  the  last  extremity, 
crossed  his  mind.  Something  of  the  same  character,  com- 
pounded of  tyrant  and  hero,  has  been  found  in  all  nations  which 
have  domineered  over  more  numerous  nations.  But  it  has 
nowhere  in  modern  Europe  shown  itself  so  conspicuously  as  in 
Ireland.  With  what  contempt,  with  what  antipathy,  the  ruling 
minority  in  that  country  long  regarded  the  subject  majority 
may  be  best  learned  from  the  hateful  laws  which,  within  the 
memory  of  men  still  living,  disgraced  the  Irish  statute  book. 
Those  laws  were  at  length  annulled :  but  the  spirit  which  had 
dictated  them  survived  them,  and  even  at  this  day  spmetimes 
breaks  out  in  excesses  pernicious  to  the  commonwealth  and  dis- 
honourable to  the  Protestant  religion.  Nevertheless  it  is  impos- 
sible to  deny  that  the  English  colonists  have  had,  with  too 
many  of  the  faults,  all  the  noblest  virtues  of  a  sovereign  caste. 


182  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

The  faults  have,  as  was  natural,  been  most  offensively  exhibited 
in  times  of  prosperity  and  security  :  the  virtues  have  been  most 
resplendent  in  times  of  distress  and  peril ;  and  never  were 
those  virtues  more  signally  displayed  than  by  the  defenders  of 
Londonderry,  when  their  Governor  had  abandoned  them,  and 
when  the  camp  of  their  mortal  enemy  was  pitched  before  their 
walls. 

No  sooner  had  the  first  burst  of  the  rage  excited  by  the 
perfidy  of  Lundy  spent  itself  than  those  whom  he  had  be- 
trayed proceeded,  with  a  gravity  and  prudence  worthy  of  the 
most  renowned  senates,  to  provide  for  the  order  and  defence 
of  the  city.  Two  governors  were  elected,  Baker  and  Walker. 
Baker  took  the  chief  military  command.  Walker's  especial 
business  was  to  preserve  internal  tranquillity,  and  to  dole  out 
supplies  from  the  magazines.*  The  inhabitants  capable  of  bear- 
ing arms  were  distributed  into  eight  regiments.  Colonels,  cap- 
tains, and  subordinate  officers  were  appointed.  In  a  few  hours 
every  man  knew  his  post,  and  was  ready  to  repair  to  it  as 
soon  as  the  beat  of  the  drum  was  heard.  That  machinery,  by 
which  Oliver  had,  in  the  preceding  generation,  kept  up  among 
his  soldiers  so  stern  and  so  pertinacious  an  enthusiasm,  was 
again  employed  with  not  less  complete  success.  Preaching  and 
praying  occupied  a  large  part  of  every  day.  Eighteen  clergymen 
of  the  Established  Church  and  seven  or  eight  nonconformist 
ministers  were  within  the  walls.  They  all  exerted  themselves 
indefatigably  to  rouse  and  sustain  the  spirit  of  the  people. 
Among  themselves  there  was  for  the  time  entire  harmony.  All 
disputes  about  church  government,  postures,  ceremonies  were 
forgotten.  The  Bishop,  having  found  that  his  lectures  on  pas- 
sive obedience  were  derided  even  by  the  Episcopalians,  had 
withdrawn  himself,  first  to  Raphoe,  and  then  to  England,  and 
was  preaching  in  a  chapel  in  London,  f  On  the  other  hand,  a 
Scotch  fanatic  named  Hewson,  who  had  exhorted  the  Presby- 
terians not  to  ally  themselves  with  such  as  refused  to  subscribe 
the  Covenant,  had  sunk  under  the  well  merited  disgust  and 

*  There  was  afterwards  some  idle  dispute  about  the  question  whether  Walker 
was  properly  Governor  or  not.    To  me  it  seems  quite  clear  that  he  was  so. 
t  Mackenzie's  jS'arrative ;  Funeral  Sermon  on  Biskop  Hopkins,  1690. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  183 

scorn  of  the  whole  Protestant  community.*  The  aspect  of  the 
Cathedral  was  remarkable.  Cannon  were  planted  on  the  sum- 
mit of  the  braad  tower  which  has  since  given  place  to  a  tower 
of  different  proportions.  Ammunition  was  stored  in  the  vaults. 
In  the  choir  the  liturgy  of  the  Anglican  Church  was  read 
every  morning.  Every  afternoon  the  Dissenters  crowded  to  a 
simpler  worship. f 

James  had  waited  twenty-four  hours,  expecting,  as  it  should 
seem,  performance  of  Lundy's  promises  ;  and  in  twenty-four 
hours  the  arrangements  for  the  defence  of  Londonderry  were 
complete.  On  the  evening  of  the  nineteenth  of  April,  a  trum- 
peter came  to  the  southern  gate,  and  asked  whether  the  engage- 
ments into  which  the  Governor  had  entered  would  be  fulfilled. 
The  answer  was  that  the  men  who  guarded  these  walls  had 
notuing  to  do  with  the  Governor's  engagements,  and  were  de- 
termined to  resist  to  the  last. 

On  the  following  day  a  messenger  of  the  higher  rank  was 
sent,  Claude  Hamilton,  Lord  Strabane,  one  of  the  few  Roman 
Catholic  peers  of  Ireland.  Murray,  who  had  been  appointed  to 
the  command  of  one  of  the  eight  regiments  into  which  the  gar- 
rison was  distributed,  advanced  from  the  gate  to  meet  the  flag 
of  truce  ;  and  a  short  conference  was  held.  Strabaue  had  been 
authorised  to  make  large  promises.  The  citizens  should  have 
a  free  pardon  for  all  that  was  past  if  they  would  submit  to  their 
Sovereign.  Murray  himself  should  have  a  colonel's  commission, 
and  a  thousand  pounds  in  money,  "  The  men  of  Londonderry," 
answered  Murray,  "  have  done  nothing  that  requires  a  pardon, 
and  own  no  Sovereign  but  King  William  and  Queen  Mary.  It 
will  not  be  safe  for  Your  Lordship  to  stay  longer,  or  to  return 
on  the  same  errand.  Let  me  have  the  honour  of  seeing  you 
through  the  lines,  "t 

*  Walker's  True  Account,  1689.  See  also  the  Apology  for  the  True  Account, 
and  the  Vindication  of  the  True  Account,  published  in  the  same  year.  I  have 
called  this  man  by  the  name  by  which  he  was  known  in  Ireland.  But  his  real 
name  was  Houstoun.  He  is  frequently  mentioned  in  the  strange  volume  entitled, 
Faithful  Contending  Displayed. 

T  A  View  of  the  Danger  and  Folly  of  baing  public  spirited,  by  William  Hamill, 
1721. 

I  See  Walker's  True  A:count  and  Mackenzie's  Narrative. 


184  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

James  had  been  assured,  and  had  fully  expected,  that  the  city 
would  yield  as  soon  as  it  was  known  that  he  was  before  the 
walls.  Finding  himself  mistaken,  he  broke  loose  from  the  con- 
trol of  Melfort,  and  determined  to  return  instantly  to  Dublin. 
Rosen  accompanied  the  King.  The  directiou  of  the  siege  was 
entrusted  to  Maumont.  Richard  Hamilton  was  second  and 
Pusignan  third,  in  command. 

The  operations  now  commenced  in  earnest.  The  besiegers 
began  by  battering  the  town.  It  was  soon  on  fire  in  several 
places.  Roofs  and  upper  stories  of  houses,  fell  in,  and  crushed 
the  inmates,  During  a  short  time  the  garrison,  many  of  whom 
had  never  before  seen  the  effect  of  a  cannonade,  seemed  to  be  dis- 
composed by  the  crash  of  chimneys,  and  by  the  heaps  of  ruin 
mingled  with  disfigured  corpses.  But  familiarity  with  danger  and 
horror  produced  in  a  few  hours  the  natural  effect.  The  spirit  of 
the  people  rose  so  high  that  their  chiefs  thought  it  safe  act  on 
the  offensive.  On  the  twenty-first  of  April  a  sally  was  made 
under  the  command  of  Murray.  The  Irish  stood  their  ground 
resolutely  ;  and  a  furious  and  bloody  contest  took  place.  Mau- 
mont, at  the  head  of  a  body  of  cavalry,  flew  to  the  place  where 
the  fight  was  raging.  He  was  struck  in  the  head  by  a  musket 
ball,  and  fell  a  corpse.  The  besiegers  lost  several  other  officer^ 
and  about  two  hundred  men,  before  the  colonists  could  be  driven 
in.  Murray  escaped  with  difficulty.  His  horse  was  killed  under 
him ;  and  he  was  beset  by  enemies  :  but  he  was  able  to  defend 
himself  till  some  of  his  friends  made  a  rush  from  the  gate  to  his 
rescue,  with  old  Walker  at  their  head.* 

In  consequence  of  the  death  of  Maumont,  Richard  Hamilton 
was  once  more  commander  of  the  Irish  army.  His  exploits  in 
that  post  did  not  raise  his  reputation.  He  was  a  fine  gentleman 

*  Walker  ;  Mackenzie  ;  Avaux,  £i£L%  1689.    There  is  a  tradition  among  the 
May  6, 

Protestants  of  Ulster  that  Maumont  fell  by  the  sword  of  Murray  ;  but  on  this 
point  the  report  made  by  the  French  ambassador  to  his  master  is  decisive.  The 
truth  is  that  there  are  almost  as  many  mythical  stories  about  the  siege  of 
Londonderry  as  about  the  siege  of  Troy.  The  legend  about  Murray  and  Maumont 
dates  from  1G89.  In  the  Royal  Voyage,  which  was  acted  in  that  year,  the  combat 
between  the  heroes  is  described  in  these  sonorous  lines — 

"  They  met  ;  and  Monsieur  at  the  first  encounter 
Fell  <lcatl,  hlnsphcming,  on  the  dusty  plain, 
And  dying,  bit  the  ground," 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  185 

and  a  brave  soldier;  but  he  had  no  pretensions  to  the  character 
of  a  great  general,  and  had  never,  in  his  life,  seen  a  siege.* 
Pusignan  had  more  science  aud  energy.  But  Pusignau  survived 
Maumont  little  more  than  a  fortnight.  At  four  in  the  morning 
of  the  sixth  of  May,  the  garrison  made  another  sally,  took 
several  flags,  aud  killed  many  of  the  besiegers.  Pusignan, 
fighting  gallantly,  was  shot  through  the  body.  The  wound  was 
one  which  a  skilful  surgeon  might  have  cured  :  but  there  was 
no  such  surgeon  in  the  Irish  camp,  and  the  communication  with 
Dublin  was  slow  and  irregular.  The  poor  Frenchman  died, 
complaining  bitterly  of  the  barbarous  ignorance  and  negligence 
which  had  shortened  his  days.  A  medical  man,  who  had  been 
sent  down  express  from  the  capital,  arrived  after  the  funeral. 
James,  in  consequence,  as  it  should  seem,  of  this  disaster,  estab- 
lished a  daily  post  between  Dublin  Castle  and  Hamilton's  head 
quarters.  Even  by  this  conveyance  letters  did  not  travel  very 
expeditiously  :  for  the  couriers  went  on  foot,  and,  from  fear 
probably  of  the  Enniskilleners,  took  a  circuitous  route  from  mili- 
tary post  to  military  post.f 

May  passed  away  :  June  arrived  ;  and  still  Londonderry 
held  out.  There  had  been  many  sallies  and  skirmishes  with 
various  success  :  but,  on  the  whole,  the  advantage  had  been  with 
the  garrison.  Several  officers  of  note  had  been  carried  prisoners 
into  the  city  ;  and  two  French  banners,  torn  after  hard  fighting 
from  the  besiegers,  had  been  hung  as  trophies  in  the  chancel  of 
tb.3  Cathedral.  It  seemed  that  the  siege  must  be  turned  into  a 
blockade.  But  before  the  hope  of  reducing  the  town  by  main 
force  was  relinquished,  it  was  determined  to  make  a  great  effort. 
The  point  selected  for  assault  was  an  outwork  called  Windmill 

*  "  Si  c'est  celuy  qui  eat  sorti  de  France  le  dernier,  qui  s'appelloit  Richard, 
il  n'a  jamais  veu  de  siege,  ayant  tousjours  servi  en  Uousillon." — Louvois  to 
Avanx,  June  3-13,  16M). 

t  Walker;  Mackenzie;  Avaux  to  Louvois,  May  2-12,  4-14,1689;  James  to 
Hamilton,  *-  L£?I.  in  the  library  of  the  Royal  Irish  Academy.  Louvois  wrote  to 

.Avaux  in  great  indignation.  "La  mauvaise  conduite  que  Ton  a  tenue  devant 
Londondery  a  coaste  la  vie  a  M.  de  Maumont  et  a  M.  de  Pusignan.  II  ne  faut 
pis  quo  sa  Maje  te  Britanntque  croye  qu'en  fai'-ant  tuer  des  ofliciers  general! x 
c.vnrnc  des  soldats,  o-i  puisse  ne  1'cn  point  laissfr  manquer.  Ces  sortes  de  gene 
sont  rares  eiutout  pays,  et  doivent  e-4re  menagez." 


1B6  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

Hill,  which  was  not  far  from  the  southern  gate.  Religious 
stimulants  were  employed  to  animate  the  courage  of  the  forlorn 
hope.  Many  volunteers  bound  themselves  by  oath  to  make 
their  way  into  the  works  or  to  perish  in  the  attempt.  Captain 
Butler,  son  of  the  Lord  Mouutgarret,  undertook  to  lead  the 
sworn  men  to  the  attack.  On  the  walls  the  colonists  were 
drawn  up  in  three  ranks.  The  office  of  those  who  were  behind 
was  to  load  the  muskets  of  those  who  were  in  front.  The  Irish 
came  on  boldly  and  with  a  fearful  uproar,  but  after  long  and 
hard  fighting  were  driven  back.  The  women  of  Londonderry 
were  seen  amidst  the  thickest  fire  serving  out  water  and  am- 
muuitiou  to  their  husbands  and  brothers.  In  one  place,  where 
the  wall  was  only  seven  feet  high,  Butler  and  some  of  his 
sworn  men  succeeded  in  reaching  the  top  ;  but  they  were  all 
killed  or  made  prisoners.  At  length,  after  four  hundred  of  the 
Irish  had  fallen,  their  chiefs  ordered  a  retreat  to  be  sounded.* 

Nothing  was  left  but  to  try  the  effect  of  hunger.  It  was 
known  that  the  stock  of  food  in  the  city  was  but  slender.  In- 
deed it  was  thought  strange  that  the  supplies  should  have  held 
out  so  long.  Every  precaution  was  now  taken  against  the 
introduction  of  provisions,  All  the  avenues  leading  to  the  city 
by  land  were  closely  guarded.  On  the  south  were  encamped, 
along  the  left  bank  of  the  Foyle,  the  horsemen  who  had  followed 
Lord  Galmoy  from  the  valley  of  the  Barrow.  Their  chief  was 
of  all  the  Irish  captains  the  most  dreaded  and  the  most  abhorred 
by  the  Protestants.  For  he  had  disciplined  his  men  with  rare 
skill  and  care  ;  and  many  frightful  stories  were  told  of  his  bar- 
barity arid  perfidy.  Long  lines  of  tents,  occupied  by  the  infan- 
try of  Butler  and  O'Neil,  of  Lord  Slane  and  Lord  Gormanstown, 
by  Nugent's  Westmeath  men,  by  Eustace's  Kildare  men,  and 
by  Cavariagh's  Kerry  men,  extended  northward  till  they  again 
approached  the  water  side.f  The  river  was  fringed  with  forts 

*  Walker  ;  Mackenzie  ;  Avaux,  June  16-26,  1689. 

t  As  to  the  discipline  of  Galmoy's  Horse,  see  the  letter  of  Avaux  to  Louvois, 
dated  September  10-20.  Horrible  stories  of  the  cruelty,  both  of  the  colonel  and 
of  his  men,  are  told  in  the  Short  View,  by  a  Clergyman,  printed  in  168P,  and  in 
several  other  pamphlets  of  that  year.  For  the  distribution  of  the  Irish  forces, 
see  the  contemporary  maps  of  the  siege.  A  catalogue  of  the  regiments,  meant,  I 


"WILLIAM   AND    MART.  187 

and  batteries,  which  no  vessel  could  pass  without  great  peril. 
After  some  time  it  was  determined  to  make  the  security,  still 
more  complete  by  throwing  a  barricade  across  the  stream,  about 
a  mile  and  a  half  below  the  city.  Several  boats  full  of  stones 
were  sunk.  A  row  of  stakes  was  driven  into  the  bottom  of  the 
river.  Large  pieces  of  fir  wood,  strongly  bound  together,  formed 
a  boom  which  was  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  mile  in  length,  and 
which  was  firmly  fastened  to  both  shores  by  cables  a  foot  thick.* 
A  huge  stone,  to  which  the  cable  on  the  left  bank  was  attached, 
was  removed  many  years  later,  for  the  purpose  of  being  polished 
and  shaped  into  a  column.  But  the  intention  was  abandoned, 
and  the  rugged  mass  still  lies,  not  many  yards  from  its  original 
site,  amidst  the  shades  which  surround  a  pleasant  country  house 
named  Boom  Hall.  Hard  by  is  a  well  from  which  the  be- 
siegers drank.  A  little  further  off  is  a  burial  ground  where 
they  laid  their  slain,  and  where  even  in  our  own  time  the  spade 
of  the  gardener  has  struck  upon  many  skulls  and  thighbones  at 
a  short  distance  beneath  the  turf  and  flowers. 

While  these  things  were  passing  in  the  North,  James  was 
holding  his  court  at  Dublin.  On  his  return  thither  from  Lon- 
donderry he  received  intelligence  that  the  French  fleet,  com- 
manded by  the  Count  of  Chateau  Renard,  had  anchored  in 
Banlry  Bay,  and  had  put  on  shore  a  large  quantity  of  military 
stores  and  a  supply  of  money.  Herbert,  who  had  just  been  sent 
to  thos.e  seas  with  an  English  squadron  for  the  purpose  of  in- 
tercepting the  communications  between  Britanny  and  Ireland, 
learned  where  the  enemy  lay,  and  sailed  into  the  bay  with  the 
intention  of  giving  battle.  But  the  wind  was  unfavourable  to 
him :  his  force  was  greatly  inferior  to  that  which  was  opposed 
to  him ;  and,  after  some  firing,  which  caused  no  serious  loss  to 
either  side,  he  thought  it  prudent  to  stand  out  to  sea,  while  the 
French  retired  into  the  recesses  of  the  harbour.  He  steered  for 
Scilly,  where  he  expected  to  find  reinforcements ;  and  Chateau 
Renaud,  content  with  the  credit  which  he  had  acquired,  and 

suppose,  to  rival  the  catalogue  in  the  second  Book  of  the  Iliad,  will  be  found  in 
the  Londeriad. 

*  Life  of  Admiral  Sir  John  Leake,  by  Stephen  M.  Leake.  Clarencieux  King  at 
Arms,  1750-    Of  this  book  only  fifty  copies  were  printed. 


188  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

afraid  of  losing  it  if  he  staid,  hastened  back  to  Brest,  though 
earnestly  entreated  by  James  to  come  around  to  Dublin. 

Both  sides  claimed  the  victory.  The  Commons  at  West- 
minster absurdly  passed  a  vote  of  thanks  to  Herbert.  James, 
not  less  absurdly,  ordered  bonfires  to  be  lighted,  and  a  Te  Deum 
to  be  sung.  But  these  marks  of  joy  by  no  means  satisfied 
Avaux,  whose  national  vanity  was  too  strong  even  for  his  char- 
acteristic prudence  and  politeness.  He  complained  that  Jamerv 
was  so  unjust  and  ungrateful  as  to  attribute  the  result  of  the 
late  action  to  the  reluctance  with  which  the  English  seamen 
fought  against  their  rightful  King  and  their  old  commander, 
and  that  His  Majesty  did  not  seem  to  be  well  pleased  by  being 
told  that  they  were  flying  over  the  ocean  pursued  bj  the  tri- 
umphant French.  Dover,  too,  was  a  bad  Frenchman.  He 
seemed  to  take  no  pleasure  in  the  defeat  of  his  countrymen,  and 
had  been  heard  to  say  that  the  affair  in  Bantry  Bay  did  not 
deserve  to  be  called  a  battle.* 

On  the  day  after  the  Te  Deum  had  been  sung  at  Dublin  for 
this  indecisive  skirmish,  the  Parliament  convoked  by  James 
assembled.  The  number  of  temporal  peers  of  Ireland,  when  lie 
arrived  in  that  kingdom,  was  about  a  hundred.  Of  these  only 
fourteen  obeyed  his  summons.  Of  the  fourteen,  ten  were 
Roman  Catholics.  By  the  reversing  of  old  attainders,  and  by 
new  creations,  seventeen  more  Lords,  all  Roman  Catholics, 
were  introduced  into  the  Upper  House.  The  Protestant  Bis- 
hops of  Meath,  Ossory,  Cork,  and  Limerick,  whether  from  a 
sincere  conviction  that  they  could  not  lawfully  withhold  their 
obedience  even  from  a  tyrant,  or  from  a  vain  hope  that  the 
heart  even  of  a  tyrant  might  be  softened  by  their  patience, 
made  their  appearance  in  the  midst  of  their  mortal  enemies. 

The  House  of  Commons  consisted  almost  exclusively  of  Irish- 
men and  Papists.  With  the  writs  the  returning  officers  had 
received  from  Tyrconnel  letters  naming  the  person  whom  he 

*  Avaux,  May  8-18,  Jfny_^-'  1689  ;  London  Gazette,  May  9 ;  Life  of  James,  ii. 

370  ;  Burchett's  Naval  Transactions  ;  Commons'  Joiirnals,  May  18,  21.  From  the 
Memoirs  of  Madame  fie  la  Fayette  it  appears  that  this  paltry  affair  was  correctly 
appreciated  at  Versailles. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  189 

wished  to  see  elected.  The  largest  constituent  bodies  in  the 
kingdom  were  at  this  time  very  small.  For  scarcely  any  but 
Roman  Catholics  dared  to  show  their  faces,  and  the  Roman 
Catholic  freeholders  were  then  very  few,  not  more,  it  is  said,  in 
some  counties,  than  ten  or  twelve.  Even  in  cities  so  consider- 
able as^Cork,  Limerick,  and  Galway,  the  number  of  persons 
who,  under  the  new  Charters,  were  entitled  to  vote  did  not 
exceed  twenty-four.  About  two  hundred  and  fifty  members 
took  their  seats.  Of  these  only  six  were  Protestants.*  The 
list  of  the  names  sufficiently  indicates  the  religious  and  political 
temper  of  the  assembly.  Alone  among  the  Irish  parliaments  of 
that  age,  this  parliament  was  filled  with  Dermots  and  Geohe- 
gans,  O'Neils  and  O'Donovans,  Macmahons,  Macnamaras,  and 
Macgillicuddies.  The  lead  was  taken  by  a  few  men  whose 
abilities  had  been  improved  by  the  study  of  the  law,  or  by  expe- 
rience acquired  in  foreign  countries.  The  Attorney  General, 
Sir  Richard  Nagle,  who  represented  the  county  of  Cork,  was 
allowed,  even  by  Protestants,  to  be  an  acute  and  learned  jurist. 
Francis  Plowden,  the  Commissioner  of  Revenue,  who  sate  for 
Bannow,  and  acted  as  chief  minister  of  finance,  was  an  English- 
man, and,  as  he  had  been  a  principal  agent  of  the  Order  of  Jes- 
uits in  money  matters,  must  be  supposed  to  have  been  an  excel- 
lent man  of  business. f  Colonel  Henry  Luttrell,  member  for  the 
county  of  Carlow,  had  served  long  in  France,  and  had  brought 
back  to  his  native  Ireland  a  sharpened  intellect  and  polish- 
ed manners,  a  flattering  tongue,  some  skill  in  war,  and  much 
more  skill  in  intrigue.  His  elder  brother,  Colonel  Simon  Lut- 
trell, who  was  member  for  the  county  of  Dublin,  and  military 
governor  of  the  capital,  had  also  resided  in  France,  and,  though 
inferior  to  Henry  in  parts  and  activity,  made  a  highly  distin- 
guished figure  among  the  adherents  of  James.  The  other  mem- 
ber for  the  county  of  Dublin  was  Colonel  Patrick  Sarsfield. 
This  gallant  officer  was  regarded  by  the  natives  as  one  of  them- 


*  King,  iii.  12  ;  Memoirs  of  Ireland  from  the  Restoration,  1716.  Lists  of  both 
Houses  will  be  found  in  King's  Appendix. 

t  I  found  proof  of  Plowden's  connection  with  the  Jesuits  in  a  Treasury 
Letter-book,  June  12, 1689. 


190  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

selves  :  for  his  ancestors  on  the  paternal  side,  though  originally 
English,  were  among  those  early  colonists  who  were  proverbi- 
ally said  to  have  become  more  Irish  than  Irishmen.  His  mother 
was  of  noble  Celtic  blood  ;  and  he  was  firmly  attached  to  the 
old  religion.  He  had  inherited  an  estate  of  about  two  thousand 
a  year,  and  was  therefore  one  of  the  wealthiest  Roman  Catholics 
iu  the  kingdom.  His  knowledge  of  courts  and  camps  was 
such  as  few  of  his  countrymen  possessed.  He  had  long  borne  a 
commission  in  the  English  Life  Guards,  had  lived  much  about 
Whitehall,  and  had  fought  bravely  under  Monmouth  on  the 
Continent,  and  against  Monmouth  at  Sedgemoor.  He  had, 
Avaux  wrote,  more  personal  influence  than  any  man  in  Ireland, 
and  was  indeed  a  gentleman  of  eminent  merit,  brave,  upright, 
honourable,  careful  of  his  men  in  quarters,  and  certain  to  be  al- 
ways found  at  their  head  in  the  day  of  battle.  His  intrepidity, 
his  frankness,  his  boundless  good  nature,  his  stature,  which  far 
exceeded  that  of  ordinary  men,  and  the  strength  which  he  exert- 
ed in  personal  conflict,  gained  for  him  the  affectionate  admira- 
tion of  the  populace.  It  is  remarkable  that  the  Englishry  gen- 
erally respected  him  as  a  valiant,  skilful,  and  generous  enemy, 
and  that,  even  in  the  most  ribald  farces  which  were  performed 
by  mountebanks  in  Smithfield,  he  was  always  excepted  from  the 
disgraceful  imputations  which  it  was  then  the  fashion  to  throw 
on  the  Irish  nation.* 

But  men  like  these  were  rare  in  the  House  of  Commons 
which  had  met  at  Dublin.  It  is  no  reproach  to  the  Irish  nation, 
a  nation  which  has  since  furnished  its  full  proportion  of  eloquent 
and  accomplished  senators,  to  say  that,  of  all  the  parliaments 
which  have  met  in  the  British  islands,  Barebone's  parliament 
not  excepted,  the  assembly  convoked  by  James  was  the  most 

*  "Sarsfield,"  Avaux  wrote  to  Louvois,  Oct.  11-21,  1089,  "n'est  pas  nn  homme 
de  la  uaissance  de  mylord  Galloway "  (Galnioy,  1  suppose)  "  uy  <le  Makarty  : 
jnais  c'est  mi  gentilliomme  distingue  par  son  merite,  qui  a  plus  de  credit  dans  ce 
royaume  qu'aucun  homme  que  je  connoisse.  11  a  de  la  valeur,  mais  surtout  de 
1'honneur  et  de  la  probite  a  toute  epreuve  .  .  .  homme  qui  sera  toujours  a 
j'a  tete  de  ses  troupes,  et  qui  en  aura  grand  goin."  Leslie,  in  his  Answer  to  King, 
says  that  the  Irish  Protestants  did  justice  to  Sarsfield's  integrity  and  honour. 
Indeed  justice  is  done  to  Sarsfield  even  in  such,  scurrilous  pieces  as  the  Koyal 
Flight. 


"WILLIAM   AND    MART.  191 

deficient  in  all  the  qualities  which  a  legislature  should  possess. 
The  stern  domination  of  a  hostile  class  had  blighted  the  faculties 
of  the  Irish  gentleman.  If  he  was  so  fortunate  as  to  have  lands, 
he  had  generally  passed  his  life  on  them,  shooting,  fishing, 
carousing,  and  making  love  among  his  vassals.  If  his  estate 
hud  been  confiscated,  he  had  wandered  about  from  bawn  to 
bawn  and  from  cabin  to  cabin,  levying  small  contributions,  and 
living  at  the  expense  of  other  men.  Pie  had  never  sate  in  the 
House  of  Commons  :  he  had  never  even  taken  an  active  part  at 
an  election  :  he  had  never  been  a  magistrate  :  scarcely  ever  had 
he  been  on  a  grand  jury.  He  had  therefore  absolutely  no  ex- 
perience of  public  affairs.  The  English  squire  of  that  age, 
though  assuredly  not  a  very  profound  or  enlightened  politician, 
was  a  statesman  and  a  philosopher  when  compared  with  the 
Roman  Catholic  squire  of  Munster  or  Connaught. 

The  parliaments  of  Ireland  had  then  no  fixed  place  of 
assembling.  Indeed  they  met  so  seldom  and  broke  up  so  speed- 
ily that  it  would  hardly  have  been  worth  'while  to  build  and 
furnish  a  palace  for  their  special  use.  It  was  not  till  the  Han- 
overian dynasty  had  been  long  on  the  throne,  that  a  senate 
house  which  sustains  a  comparison  with  the  finest  compositions 
of  Inigo  Jones  arose  between  the  College  and  the  Castle.  In 
the  seventeenth  century  there  stood,  on  the  spot  where  the 
portico  and  dome  of  the  Four  Courts  now  overlook  the  Liffey, 
an  ancient  building  which  had  once  been  a  convent  of  Domini- 
can friars,  but  had,  since  the  Reformation,  been  appropriated  to 
the  use  of  the  legal  profession,  and  bore  the  name  of  the  King's 
Inns.  There  accommodation  had  been  provided  for  the  parlia- 
ment. On  the  seventh  of  May,  James,  dressed  in  royal  robes 
and  wearing  a  crown,  took  his  seat  on  the  throne  in  the  House 
of  Lords,  and  ordered  the  Commons  to  be  summoned  to  the 
bar.* 

Pie  then  expressed  his  gratitude  to  the  natives  of  Ireland  for 
having  adhered  to  his  cause  when  the  people  of  his  other  king- 

*  Journal  of  the  Parliament  in  Ireland,  16R9.  The  reader  must  not  imagine 
that  this  Journal  has  an  official  character.  It  is  merely  a  compilation  made  by 
a  Protestant  pamphleteer,  and  printed  in  London. 


192  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

doms  had  deserted  him.  His  resolution  to  abolish  all  religious 
disabilities  in  all  his  dominions  he  declared  to  be  unalterable. 
He  invited  the  houses  to  take  the  Act  of  Settlement  into  consid- 
eration, and  to  redress  the  injuries  of  which  the  old  proprietors 
of  the  soil  had  reason  to  complain.  He  concluded  by  acknowl- 
edging in  warm  terms  his  obligations  to  the  King  of  France.* 

When  the  royal  speech  had  been  pronounced,  the  Chancellor 
directed  the  Commons  to  repair  to  their  chamber  and  to  elect  a 
Speaker.  They  chose  the  Attorney  General  Nagle ;  and  the 
choice  was  approved  by  the  King.f 

The  Commons  next  passed  resolutions  expressing  warm 
gratitude  both  to  James%  and  to  Lewis.  Indeed  it  was  proposed  to 
send  a  deputation  with  an  address  to  Avaux ;  but  the  Speaker 
pointed  out  the  gross  impropriety  of  such  a  step ;  and,  on  this 
occasion,  his  interference  was  successful,  t  It  was  seldom  how- 
ever that  the  House  was  disposed  to  listen  to  reason.  The 
debates  were  all  rant  and  tumult.  Judge  Daly,  a  Roman 
Catholic,  but  an  honest  and  able  man,  could  not  refrain  from 
lamenting  the  indecency  and  folly  with  which  the  members  of 
his  Church  carried  on  the  work  of  legislation.  Those  gentlemen, 
he  said,  were  not  a  parliament :  they  were  a  mere  rabble :  they 
resembled  nothing  so  much  as  the  mob  of  fishermen  and  market 
gardeners,  who,  at  Naples,  yelled  and  threw  up  their  caps  in 
honour  of  Massaniello.  It  was  painful  to  hear  member  after 
member  talking  wild  nonsense  about  his  own  losses,  and  clamour- 
ing for  an  estate,  when  the  lives  of  all  and  the  independence  of 
their  common  country  were  in  peril.  These  words  were  spoken 
in  private  ;  but  some  talebearer  repeated  them  to  the  Commons. 
A  violent  storm  broke  forth.  Daly  was  ordered  to  attend  at 
the  bar ;  and  there  was  little  doubt  that  he  would  be  severely 
dealt  with.  But,  just  when  he  was  at  the  door,  one  o.f  the 
members  rushed  in  shouting, "  Good  news  :  Londonderry  is 
taken."  The  whole  House  rose.  All  the  hats  were  flung  into 
the  air.  Three  loud  huzzas  were  raised.  Every  heart  was 

*  Life  of  James,  ii.  355.  t  Journal  of  the  Parliament  iu  Ireland 

Mny2<5,  1nfiQ 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  193 

softened  by  the  happy  tidings.  Nobody  would  hear  of  punish- 
ment at  such  a  moment.  The  order  for  Daly's  attendance  was 
discharged  amidst  cries  of  "  No  submission  :  no  submission  :  we 
pardon  him."  In  a  few  hours  it  was  known  that  Londonderry 
held  out  as  obstinately  as  ever.  This  transaction,  in  itself 
unimportant,  deserves  to  be  recorded,  as  showing  how  destitute 
that  House  of  Commons  was  of  the  qualities  which  ought  to  be 
found  in  the  great  council  of  a  kingdom.  And  this  assembly, 
without  experience,  without  gravity,  and  without  temper,  was 
now  to  legislate  on  questions  which  would  have  tasked  to  the 
utmost  the  capacity  of  the  greatest  statesmen.* 

One  Act  James  induced  them  to  pass  which  would  have  been 
most  honourable  to  him  and  to  them,  if  there  were  not  abundant 
proofs  that  it  was  meant  to  be  a  dead  letter.  It  was  an  Act 
purporting  to  grant  entire  liberty  of  conscience  to  all  Christian 
sects.  On  this  occasion  a  proclamation  was  put  forth  announc- 
ing in  boastful  language  to  the  English  people  that  their  rightful 
King  had  now  signally  refuted  those  slanderers  who  had  accused 
him  of  affecting  zeal  for  religious  liberty  merely  in  order  to  serve 
a  turn.  If  he  were  at  heart  inclined  to  persecution,  would  he 
not  have  persecuted  the  Irish  Protestants  ?  He  did  not  want 
power.  He  did  not  want  provocation.  Yet  at  Dublin,  where 
the  members  of  his  Church  were  the  majority,  as  at  Westminster, 
where  they  were  a  minority,  he  had  firmly  adhered  to  the  princi- 
ples laid  down  in  his  much  maligned  Declaration  of  Indul- 
gence, f  Unfortunately  for  him,  the  same  wind  which  carried 
his  fair  professions  to  England  carried  thither  also  evidence 
that  his  professions  were  insincere.  A  single  law,  worthy  of 
Turgot  or  of  Franklin,  seemed  ludicrously  out  of  place  in  the 
midst  of  a  crowd  of  laws  which  would  have  disgraced  Gardiner 
or  Alva. 

A  necessary  preliminary  to  the  vast  work  of  spoliation  and 

*  A  True  Account  of  the  Present  State  of  Ireland,  by  a  Person  that  with  Great 
Difficulty  left  Dublin,  1689  ;  Letter  from  Dublin,  dated  June  12, 1689 ;  Journal  of 
the  Parliament  in  Ireland. 

t  Life  of  James,  ii.  361,  362,  363.  In  the  Life  it  is  said  that  the  proclamation 
•was  put  forth  without  the  privity  of  James,  but  that  he  subsequently  approved 
of  it.  See  "Welwood's  Answer  to  the  Declaration,  1689. 

VOL.  III.— 13 


194  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

slaughter  on  which  the  legislators  of  Dublin  were  bent,  was  an 
Act  annulling  the  authority  which  the  English  Parliament,  both 
as  the  supreme  legislature  and  as  the  supreme  Court  of  Appeal, 
had  hitherto  exercised  over  Ireland.*  This  Act  was  rapidly- 
passed  ;  and  then  followed,  in  quick  succession,  confiscations  and 
proscriptions  on  a  gigantic  scale.  The  personal  estates  of 
absentees  above  the  age  of  seventeen  years  were  transferred  to 
the  King.  When  lay  property  was  thus  invaded,  it  was  not 
likely  that  the  endowments,  which  had  been,  in  contravention  of 
every  sound  principle,  lavished  on  the  Church  of  the  minority, 
would  be  spared.  To  reduce  those  endowments,  without  pre- 
judice to  existing  interests,  would  have  been  a  reform  worthy  of 
a  good  prince  and  of  a  good  parliament.  But  no  such  reform 
would  satisfy  the  vindictive  bigots  who  sate  at  the  King's  Inns. 
By  one  sweeping  Act  the  greater  part  of  the  tithe  was  trans- 
ferred from  the  Protestant  to  the  Roman  Catholic  clergy  ;  and 
the  existing  incumbents  were  left,  without  one  farthing  of  com- 
pensation, to  die  of  hunger. f  A  Bill  repealing  the  Act  of  Set- 
tlement and  transferring  many  thousands  of  square  miles  from 
Saxon  to  Celtic  landlords  was  brought  in  and  carried  by  accla- 
mation, t 

Of  legislation  such  as  this  it  is  impossible  to  speak  too  severe- 
ly :  but  for  the  legislators  there  are  excuses  which  it  is  the  duty 
of  the  historian  to  notice.  They  acted  unmercifully,  unjustly, 
unwisely.  But  it  would  be  absurd  to  expect  mercy,  justice,  or 
wisdom  from  a  class  of  men  first  abased  by  many  years  of  oppres- 
sion, and  then  maddened  by  the  joy  of  a  sudden  deliverance,  and 
armed  with  irresistible  power.  The  representatives  of  the  Irish 
nation  were,  with  few  exceptions,  rude  and  ignorant.  They  had 
lived  in  a  state  of  constant  irritation.  With  aristocraticnl  senti- 
ments they  had  been  in  a  servile  position.  With  the  highest 
pride  of  blood,  they  had  been  exposed  to  daily  affronts,  such  as 

*  Light  to  the  Blind  ;  An  Act  declaring  that  the  Parliament  of  England  eaii- 
iiotbind  Ireland  against  Writs  of  Error  and  Appeals,  printed  in  London,  1GOO. 

t  An  Act  concerning  Appropriate  Tythes  and  other  Duties  payable  to  Ecclesi- 
astical Dignitaries.  London,  1690. 

J  An  Act  for  regaling  the  Acts  of  Settlement  and  Explanation,  and  all 
Grants,  Patents,  and  Certificates  pursuant  to  them  or  any  of  them.  London, 
1680. 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  195 

might  well  have  roused  the  choler  of  the  humblest  plebeian.  In 
sight  of  the  fields  and  castles  which  they  regarded  as  their  own, 
they  had  been  glad  to  be  invited  by  a  peasant  to  partake  of  his 
whey  and  his  potatoes.  Those  violent  emotions  of  hatred  and 
cupidity  which  the  situation  of  the  native  gentleman  could 
scarcely  fail  to  call  forth  appeared  to  him  under  the  specious 
guise  of  patriotism  and  piety.  For  his  enemies  were  the 
enemies  of  his  nation ;  and  the  same  tyranny  which  had  robbed 
him  of  his  patrimony  had  robbed  his  Church  of  vast  wealth 
bestowed  on  her  by  the  devotion  of  an  earlier  age.  How  was 
power  likely  to  be  used  by  an  uneducated  and  inexperienced 
man,  agitated  by  strong  desires  and  resentments  which  he  mistook 
for  sacred  duties  ?  And,  when  two  or  three  hundred  such  men 
were  brought  together  in  one  assembly,  what  was  to  be  expected 
but  that  the  passions  which  each  had  long  nursed  in  silence 
would  be  at  once  matured  into  fearful  vigour  by  the  influence 
of  sympathy  ?  ''IV 

Between  James  and  his  parliament  -there  was  little  in  com- 
mon, except  hatred  of  the  Protestant  religion.  He  was  an  Eng- 
lishman. Superstition  had  not  utterly  extinguished  all  national 
feeling  in  his  mind;  and  he  could  not  but  be  displeased  by  the 
malevolence  with  which  his  Celtic  supporters  regarded  the  race 
from  which  he  sprang.  The  range  of  his  intellectual  vision  was 
small.  Yet  it  was  impossible  that,  having  reigned  in  England, 
and  looking  constantly  forward  to  the  day  when  he  should  reign 
in  England  once  more,  he  should  not  take  a  wider  view  of 
politics  than  was  taken  by  men  who  had  no  objects  out  of  Ireland. 
The  few  Irish  Protestants  who  still  adhered  to  him,  and  the 
British  nobles,  both  Protestant  and  Roman  Catholic,  who  had 
followed  him  into  exile,  implored  him  to  restrain  the  violence  of 
the  rapacious  and  vindictive  senate  which  he  had  convoked. 
They  with  peculiar  earnestness  implored  him  not  to  consent  to 
the  repeal  of  the  Act  of  Settlement.  On  what  security,  they 
asked,  could  any  man  invest  his  money  or  give  a  portion  to  his 
children,  if  he  could  not  rely  on  positive  laws  and  on  the  un- 
interrupted possession  of  many  years  ?  The  military  adven- 
turers among  whom  Cromwell  portioned  out  the  soil  might  per- 


196  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

haps  be  regarded  as  wrongdoers.  But  how  large  a  part  of  their 
estates  had  passed,  by  fair  purchase,  into  other  hands  !  How 
much  money  had  proprietors  borrowed  on  mortgage,  on  statute 
merchant,  on  statute  staple  !  How  many  capitalists  had,  trusting 
to  legislative  acts  and  to  royal  promises,  come  over  from  England, 
and  bought  land  in  Ulster  and  Leinster,  without  the  least  misgiv- 
ing as  to  the  title !  What  a  sum  had  those  capitalists  expended, 
during  a-  quarter  of  a  century,  in  building,  draining,  enclosing, 
planting  !  The  terms  of  the  compromise  which  Charles  the  Second 
had  sanctioned  might  not  be  in  all  respects  just.  But  was  one  in- 
justice to  be  redressed  by  committing  another  injustice  more 
monstrous  still  ?  And  what  effect  was  likely  to  be  produced  in 
England  by  the  cry  of  thousands  of  innocent  English  families 
whom  an  English  king  had  doomed  to  ruin?  The  complaints  of 
such  a  body  of  sufferers  might  delay,  might  prevent,  the  Restora- 
tion to  which  all  loyal  subjects  were  eagerly  looking  forward  ; 
and,  even  if  His  Majesty  should,  in  spite  of  those  complaints,  be 
happily  restored,  he  would  to  the  end  of  his  life  feel  the  perni- 
cious effects  of  the  injustice  which  evil  advisers  were  now  urging 
him  to  commit.  He  would  find  that,  in  trying  to  quiet  one  set 
of  malecontents,  he  had  created  another.  As  surely  as  he  yielded 
to  the  clamour  raised  at  Dublin  for  a  repeal  of  the  Act  of  Settle- 
ment, he  would,  from  the  day  on  which  he  returned  to  Westmin- 
ster, be  assailed  by  as  loud  and  pertinacious  a  clamour  for  a 
repeal  of  that  repeal.  He  could  not  but  be  aware  that  no  English 
Parliament,  however  loyal,  would  permit  such  laws  as  were  now 
passing  through  the  Irish  parliament  to  stand.  Had  he  made  up 
his  mind  to  take  the  part  of  Ireland  against  the  universal  sense 
of  England?  If  so,  to  what  could  he  look  forward  but  another 
banishment  and  another  deposition  ?  Or  would  he,  when  he  had 
recovered  the  greater  kingdom,  revoke  the  boons  by  which,  in  , 
his  distress,  he  had  purchased  the  help  of  the  smaller?  It  might 
seem  an  insult  to  him  even  to  suggest  that  he  could  harbour  the 
thought  of  such  unprincely,  of  such  unmanly,  perfidy.  Yet  what 
other  course  would  be  left  to  him  ?  And  was  it  not  better  for 
him  to  refuse  unreasonable  concessions  now  than  to  retract  those 
concessions  hereafter  in  a  manner  which  must  bring  on  him 


"WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  197 

reproaches  insupportable  to  a  noble  mind  ?  His  situation  was 
doubtless  embarrassing.  Yet  in  this  case,  as  in  other  cases,  it 
would  be  found  that  the  path  of  justice  was  the  path  of  wisdom.* 
Though  James  had,  in  his  speech  at  the  opening  of  the  ses- 
sion, declared  against  the  Act  of  Settlement,  he  felt  that  these 
arguments  were  unanswerable.  He  held  several  conferences 
with  the  leading  members  of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  ear- 
nestly recommended  moderation.  But  his  exhortation^  irritated 
the  passions  which  he  wished  to  allay.  Many  of  the  native 
gentry  held  high  and  violent  language.  It  was  impudent,  they 
said,  to  talk  about  the  rights  of  purchasers.  How  could  right 
spring  out  of  wrong?  People  who  chose  to  buy  property 
acquired  by  injustice  must  take  the  consequences  of  their  folly 
and  cupidity.  It  was  clear  that  the  Lower  House  was  altogether 
impracticable.  James  had,  four  years  before,  refused  to  make 
the  smallest  concession  to  the  most  obsequious  parliament  that 
has  ever  sat  in  England  ;  and  it  might  have  been  expected  that 
the  obstinacy,  which  he  had  never  wanted  when  it  was  a  vice, 
would  not  have  failed  him  now  when  it  would  have  been  a 
virtue.  During  a  short  time  he  seemed  determined  to  act  justly. 
He  even  talked  of  dissolving  the  Parliament.  The  chiefs  of  the 
old  Celtic  families,  on  the  other  hand,  said  publicly  that,  if  he 
did  not  give  them  back  their  inheritance,  they  would  not  fight  for 
his.  His  very  soldiers  railed  on  him  in  the  streets  of  Dublin. 
At  length  he  determined  to  go  down  himself  to  the  House  of 
Peers,  not  in  his  robes  and  crown,  but  in  the  garb  in  which  he 
had  been  used  to  attend  debates  at  Westminster,  and  personally  to 
solicit  the  Lords  to  put  some  check  on  the  violence  of  the  Com- 
mons. But  just  as  he  was  getting  into  his  coach  for  this  pur- 
pose he  was  stopped  by  Avaux.  Avaux  was  as  zealous  as  any 
Irishman  for  the  bills  which  the  Commons  were  urging  forward. 
It  was  enough  for  him  that  those  bills  seemed  likely  to  make 
the  enmity  between  England  and  Ireland  irreconcileable.  His 
remonstrances  induced  James  to  abstain  from  openly  opposing 

*  See  the  paper  delivered  to  James  by  Chief  Justice  Keating,  and  the  speech 
of  the  Bishop  of  Meath.  Both  are  in  King's  appendix.  Life  of  James,  ii.  357 
-361. 


198  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

the  repeal  of  the  Act  of  Settlement.  Still  the  unfortunate  Prince 
continued  to  cherish  some  faint  hope  that  the  law  for  which  the 
Commons  were  so  zealous  would  be  rejected,  or  at  least  modi- 
fied, by  the  Peers.  Lord  Granard,  one  of  the  few  Protestant 
noblemen  who  sate  in  that  Parliament,  exerted  himself  stren- 
uously on  the  side  of  public,  faith  and  sound  policy.  The  King 
sent  him  a  message  of  thanks.  "  We  Protestants,"  said  Granard 
to  Powis  .who  brought  the  message,  "  are  few  in  number.  We 
can  do  little.  His  Majesty  should  try  his  influence  with  the 
Eoman  Catholics."  "  His  Majesty,"  answered  Powis  with  an 
oath,  "  dares  not  say  what  he  thinks."  A  few  days  later  James 
met  Granard  riding  towards  the  parliament  house.  "  Where 
are  you  going,  my  Lord  ?  "  said  the  King.  "  To  enter  my 
protest,  Sir,"  answered  Granard,  "  against  the  repeal  of  the  Act 
of  Settlement."  "  You  are  right,"  said  the  King  :  "  but  I  am 
fallen  into  the  hands  of  people  who  will  ram  that  and  much 
more  down  my  throat."  * 

James  yielded  to  the  will  of  the  Commons :  but  the  unfa- 
vourable impression  which  his  short  and  feeble  resistance  had 
made  upon  them  was  not  to  be  removed  by  his  submission. 
They  regarded  him  with  profound  distrust :  they  considered 
him  as  at  heart  an  Englishman  ;  and  not  a  day  passed  with- 
out some  indication  of  this  feeling.  They  were  in  no  haste  to 
grant  him  a  supply.  One  party  among  them  planned  an  address 
urging  him  to  dismiss  Melfort  as  an  enemy  of  their  nation. 
Another  party  drew  up  a  bill  for  deposing  all  the  Protestant 
Bishops,  even  the  four  who  were  then  actually  sitting  in  Parlia- 
ment. It  was  not  without  difficulty  that  Avaux  and  Tyrconnel, 
whose  influence  in  the  Lower  House  far  exceeded  the  King's, 
could  restrain  the  zeal  of  the  majority.f 

It  is  remarkable  that,  while  the  King  was  losing  the  confi- 
dence and  good  will  of  the  Irish  Commons  by  faintly  defending 
against  them,  in  one  quarter,  the  institution  of  property,  he 

*  Leslie's  Answer  to  King  ;  Avaux,  j~~  1689 ;  Life  of  James,  ii.  358. 

t  Avaux,  MayJ-i  1689,  and  ??T -"'°'-    The  author  of  Light  to  the  Blind  strongly 

Jnn"  ".  July  10. 

condemns  the  indulgence  alio  wn  to  the  Protaetaiit  Bishops  who  adhered  to  James. 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  199 

was,  himself,  iu  auother  quarter,  attacking  that  institution  with 
a  violence,  if  possible,  more  reckless  than  theirs.  He  soon 
found  that  no  money  came  into  his  Exchequer.  The  cause  was 
sufficiently  obvious.  Trade  was  at  an  end.  Floating  capital 
had  been  withdrawn  in  great  masses  from  the  island.  Of  the 
fixed  capital  much  had  been  destroyed,  and  the  rest  was  lying 
idle  Thousands  of  those  Protestants  who  were  the  most  in- 
dustrious and  intelligent  part  of  the  population  had  emigrated 
to  England.  Thousands  had  taken  refuge  in  the  places  which 
still  held  out  for  William  and  Mary.  Of  the  Roman  Catholic 
peasantry  who  were  in  the  vigour  of  life  the  majority  had 
enlisted  in  the  army  or  had  joined  gangs  of  plunderers.  The 
poverty  of  the  treasury  was  the  necessary  effect  of  the  poverty 
of  the  country :  public  prosperity  could  be  restored  only  by  the 
restoration  of  private  prosperity  :  and  private  prosperity  could 
be  restored  only  by  years  of  peace  and  security.  James  was 
absurd  enough  to  imagine  that  there  was  a  more  speedy  and 
efficacious  remedy.  He  could,  he  conceived,  at  once  extricate 
himself  from  his  financial  difficulties  by  the  simple  process  of 
calling  a  farthing  a  shilling.  The  right  of  coining  was  undoubt- 
edly a  flower  of  the  prerogative  :  and,  in  his  view,  the  right  of 
coining  included  the  right  of  debasing  the  coin.  Pots,  pans, 
knockers  of  doors,  pieces  of  ordnance  which  had  long  been  past 
use,  were  carried  to  the  mint.  In  a  short  time  lumps  of  base 
metal,  nominally  worth  near  a  million  sterling,  intrinsically 
worth  about  a  sixtieth  part  of  that  sum,  were  in  circulation.  A 
royal  edict  declared  these  pieces  to  be  legal  tender  in  all  cases 
whatever.  A  mortgage  for  a  thousand  pounds  was  cleared  off 
by  a  bag  of  counters  made  out  of  old  kettles.  The  creditors 
who  complained  to  the  Court  of  Chancery  were  told  by  Fitton 
to  take  their  money  and  be  gone.  But  of  all  classes  the  trades- 
men of  Dublin,  who  were  generally  Protestants,  were  the 
greatest  losers.  At  first,  of  course,  they  raised  their  demands  : 
but  the  magistrates  of  the  city  took  on  themselves  to  meet  this 
heretical  machination  by  putting  forth  a  tariff  regulating  prices. 
Any  man  who  belonged  to  the  caste  now  dominant  might  walk 
into  a  shop,  lay  on  the  counter  a  bit  of  brass  worth  three  pence, 


200  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

and  carry  off  goods  to  the  value  of  half  a  guinea.  Legal  re- 
dress was  out  of  the  question.  Indeed  the  sufferers  thought 
themselves  happy  if,  by  the  sacrifice  of  their  stock  in  trade, 
they  could  redeem  their  limbs  and  their  lives.  There  was  not 
a  baker's  shop  in  the  city  round  which  twenty  or  thirty  soldiers 
were  not  constantly  prowling.  Some  persons  who  refused  the 
base  money  were  arrested  by  troopers  and  carried  before  the 
Provost  Marshal,  who  cursed  them,  swore  at  them,  locked  them 
up  in  dark  cells,  and  by  threatening  to  hang  them  at  their  own 
doors,  soon  overcame  their  resistance.  Of  all  the  plagues  of 
that  time  none  made  a  deeper  or  a  more  lasting  impression  on 
\he  minds  of  the  Protestants  of  Dublin  than  the  plague  of  the 
brass  money.*  To  the  recollection  of  the  confusion  and  misery 
which  had  been  produced  by  James's  coin  must  be  in  part 
ascribed  the  strenuous  opposition  which,  thirty  five  years  later, 
large  classes,  firmly  attached  to  the  House  of  Hanover,  offered 
to  the  government  of  George  the  First  in  the  affair  of  Wood's 
patent. 

There  can  be  no  question  that  James,  in  thus  altering,  by 
his  own  authority,  the  terms  of  all  the  contracts  in  the  kingdom, 
assumed  a  power  which  belonged  only  to  the  whole  legislature. 
Yet  the  Commons  did  not  remonstrate.  There  was  no  power, 
however  unconstitutional,  which  they  were  not  willing  to  con- 
cede to  him,  as  long  as  he  used  it  to  crush  and  plunder  the 
English  population.  On  the  other  hand,  they  respected  no 
prerogative,  however  ancient,  however  legitimate,  however  salu- 
tary, if  they  apprehended  that  he  might  use  it  to  protect  the 
race  which  they  abhorred.  They  were  not  satisfied  till  they 
had  extorted  his  reluctant  consent  to  a  portentous  law,  a  law 
without  a  parallel  in  the  history  of  civilised  countries,  the  great 
Act  of  Attainder. 

A  list  was  framed  containing  between  two  and  three  thou- 
sand names.  At  the  top  was  half  the  peerage  of  Ireland.  Then 
came  baronets,  knights,  clergymen,  squires,  merchants,  yeomen, 

*  King  iii.  11  ;  Brief  Memoirs  by  Haynes,  Assay  Master  of  the  Mint,  among 
the  Lansdowne  MSS.  at  the  British  Museum,  No  801.  I  have  seen  several  speci- 
mens of  this  coin-  The  execution  is  surprisingly  good,  all  circumstances  con- 
•idered. 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  201 

artisans,  women,  children.  No  investigation  was  made.  Any 
member  who  wished  to  rid  himself  of  a  creditor,  a  rival,  a  private 
enemy,  gave  in  the  name  to  the  clerk  at  the  table,  and  it  was  gener- 
ally inserted  without  discussion.  The  only  debate  of  which  any 
account  has  come  down  to  us  related  to  the  Earl  of  Strafford. 
He  had  friends  in  tKe  House  who  ventured  to  offer  something  in 
his  favour.  But  a  few  words  from  Simon  Luttrell  settled  the 
question.  "  I  have,"  he  said,  "  heard  the  King  say  some  hard 
things  of  that  Lord."  This  was  thought  sufficient,  and  the 
name  of  Strafford  stands  fifth  in  the  long  table  of  the  proscribed.* 

Days  were  fiseed  before  which  those  whose  names  were  on  the 
list  were  required  to  surrender  themselves'  to  such  justice  as  was 
then  administered  to  English  Protestants  in  Dublin.  If  a  pro- 
scribed person  was  in  Ireland,  he  must  surrender  himself  by  the 
tenth  of  August.  If  he  had  left  Ireland  since  the  fifth  of 
November  1688,  he  must  surrender  himself  by  the  first  of  Sep- 
tember. If  he  had  left  Ireland  before  the  fifth  of  November 
1688,  he  must  surrender  himself  by  the  first  of  October.  If  he 
failed  to  appear  by  the  appointed  day,  he  was  to  be  hanged, 
drawn,  and  quartered  without  a  trial,  and  his  property  was  to 
be  confiscated.  It  might  be  physically  impossible  for  him  to 
deliver  himself  up  within  the  time  fixed  by  the  Act.  He  might 
be  bedridden.  He  might  be  in  the  West  Indies.  He  might  be 
in  prison.  Indeed  there  notoriously  were  such  cases.  Among 
the  attainted  Lords  was  Mountjoy.  He  had  been  induced,  by 
the  villany  of  Tyrconnel,  to  trust  himself  at  Saint  Germains  : 
he  had  been  thrown  into  the  Bastile :  he  was  still  lying  there  ; 
and  the  Irish  Parliament  was  not  ashamed  to  enact  that,  unless 
he  could,  within  a  few  weeks,  make  his  escape  from  his  cell, 
and  present  himself  at  Dublin,  he  should  be  put  to  death.f 

As  it  was  not  even  pretended  that  there  had  been  any 
enquiry  into  the  guilt  of  those  who  were  thus  proscribed,  as 
not  a  single  one  among  them  had  been  heard  in  his  own  defence, 
and  as  it  was  certain  that  it  would  be  physically  impossible  for 

*  King,  iii.  12. 

t  An  Act  for  the  Attainder  of  divers  Kebels  and  for  preserving  the  Interest  of 
loyal  Subjects,  London,  1690. 


202  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

many  of  them  to  surrender  themselves  in  time,  it  was  clear  that 
nothing  but  a  large  exercise  of  the  royal  prerogative  of  mercy 
could  prevent  the  perpetration  of  iniquities  so  horrible  that  no 
precedent  could  be  found  for  them  even  in  the  lamentable 
history  of  the  troubles  of  Ireland.  The  Commons  therefore 
determined  that  the  royal  prerogative  of  mercy  should  be  lim- 
ited. Several  regulations  were  devised  for  the  purpose  of 
making  the  passing  of  pardons  difficult  and  costly  ;  and  finally 
it  was  enacted  that  every  pardon  granted  by  His  Majesty,  after 
the  end  of  November  1689,  to  any  of  the  many  hundreds  of 
persons  who  had  been  sentenced  to  death  without  a  trial,  should 
be  absolutely  void  and  of  none  effect.  Sir  Richard  Nagle  came 
in  state  to  the  bar  of  the  Lords  and  presented  the  bill  with  a 
speech  worthy  of  the  occasion.  "  Many  of  the  persons  here  at- 
tainted," said  he,  "  have  been  proved  traitors  by  such  evidence  as 
satisfies  us.  As  to  the  rest  we  have  followed  common  fame."  * 

With  such  reckless  barbarity  was  the  list  framed  that  fanat- 
ical royalists,  who  were,  at  that  very  time,  hazarding  their 
property,  their  liberty,  their  lives,  in  the  cause  of  James,  were 
not  secure  from  proscription.  The  most  learned  man  of  whom 
the  Jacobite  party  could  boast  was  Henry  Dodwell,  Camdenian 
Professor  in  the  University  of  Oxford.  In  the  cause  of  hered- 
itary monarchy  he  shrank  from  no  sacrifice  and  from  no  danger. 
It  was  about  him  that  William  uttered  those  memorable  words : 
"  He  has  set  his  heart  on  being  a  martyr  ;  and  I  have  set  mine 
on  disappointing  him."  But  James  was  more  cruel  to  friends 
than  William  to  foes.  Dodwell  was  a  Protestant :  he  had  some 
property  in  Connaught :  these  crimes  were  sufficient ;  and  he 
was  set  down  in  the  long  roll  of  those  who  were  doomed  to  the 
gallows  and  the  quartering  block,  f 

That  James  would  give  his  assent  to  a  bill  which  took 
from  him  the  power  of  pardoning,  seemed  to  many  persons  im- 
possible. He  had,  four  years  before,  quarrelled  with  the  most 

*  King,  iii,  13. 

t  Ilia  name  is  in  the  first  column  of  pacje  39,  in  that  edition  of  the  List  which 
was  licensed  March  2(5,  1G9J.  I  should  have  thought  that  the  proscribed  person 
must  have  been  some  other  Henry  Dodwell.  But  Bishop  Kennet's  second  letter 
to  the  Bishop  of  Carlisle,  1716,  leaves  no  doubt  about  the  matter. 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  203 

loyal  of  parliaments  rather  than  cede  a  prerogative  which  did 
uot  belong  to  him.  It  might,  therefore,  well  be  expected  that 
he  would  now  have  struggled  hard  to  retain  a  precious"  preroga- 
tive which  had  been  enjoyed  by  his  predecessors  ever  since  the 
origin  of  the  monarchy,  and  which  even  the  Whigs  allowed  to 
be  a  flower  properly  belonging  to  the  Crown.  The  stern  look 
and  raised  voice  with  which  he  had  reprimanded  the  Tory  gen- 
tlemen, who,  in  the  language  of  profound  reverence  and  fervent 
affection,  implored  him  not  to  dispense  with  the  laws,  would  now 
have  been  in  place.  m  He  might  also  have  seen  that  the  right 
course  was  the  wise  course.  Had  he,  on  this  great  occasion, 
had  the  spirit  to  declare  that  he  would  not  shed  the  blood  of  the 
innocent,  and  that,  even  as  respected  the  guilty,  he  would  not 
divest  himself  of  the  power  of  tempering  judgment  with  mercy, 
he  would  have  regained  more  hearts  in  England  than  he  would 
have  lost  in  Ireland.  But  it  was  ever  his  fate  to  resist  where 
he  should  have  yielded,  and  to  yield  where  he  should  have 
resisted.  The  most  wicked  of  all  laws  received  his  sanction ; 
and  it  is  but  a  very  small  extenuation  of  his  guilt  that  his  sanc- 
tion was  somewhat  reluctantly  given. 

That  nothing  might  be  wanting  to  the  completeness  of  this 
great  crime,  extreme  care  was  taken  to  prevent  the  persons  who 
were  attainted  from  knowing  that  they  were  attainted,  till  the 
day  of  grace  fixed  in  the  Act  was  passed.  The  roll  of  names 
was  not  published,  but  kept  carefully  locked  up  in  Fitton's 
closet.  Some  Protestants,  who  still  adhered  to  the  cause  of 
James,  but  who  were  anxious  to  know  whether  any  of  their 
friends  or  relations  had  been  proscribed,  tried  hard  to  obtain 
a  sight  of  the  list :  but  solicitation,  remonstrance,  even  bribery, 
proved  vain.  Not  a  single  copy  got  abroad  till  it  was  too  late 
for  any  of  the  thousands  who  had  been  condemned  without  a 
trial  to  obtain  a  pardon.* 

Towards  the  close  of  July  James  prorogued  the  Houses. 

*  A  list  of  most  of  the  names  of  the  Noliility,  Gentry,  and  Commonalty  of 
England  and  Ireland  (amongst  whom  are  several  Women  and  Children)  who  are 
all.  by  an  Act  of  a  Pretended  Parliament  assembled  in  Dublin,  attainted  of  Ili-jh 
Treason,  1690  ;  An  Account  of  the  Transactions  of  the  late  King  James  in  Ire- 
land, 1690  ;  King,  iii.  13  ;  Memoirs  of  Ireland,  1716. 


201  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

They  had  sate  more  than  ten  weeks  :  and  in  that  space  of  time 
they  had  proved  most  fully  that,  great  as  have  been  the  evils 
which  Protestant  ascendency  has  produced  in  Ireland,  the  evils 
produced  by  Popish  ascendency  would  have  been  greater  still. 
That  the  colonists,  when  they  had  won  the  victory,  grossly 
abused  it,  that  their  legislation  was,  during  many  years,  unjust 
and  tyrannical,  is  most  true.  'But  it  is  not  less  true  that  they 
never  quite  came  up  to  the  atrocious  example  set  by  their  van- 
quished enemy  during  his  short  tenure  of  power. 

Indeed,  while  James  was  loudly  boasting  that  he  had  passed 
an  Act  granting  entire  liberty  of  conscience  to  all  sects,  a  per- 
secution as  cruel  as  that  of  Languedoc  was  raging  through  all 
the  provinces  which  owned  his  authority.  It  was  said  by  those 
who  wished  to  find  an  excuse  for  him  that  almost  all  the  Pro- 
testants, who  still  remained  in  Munster,  Connaught,  and  Lein- 
ster,  were  his  enemies,  and  that  it  was  not  as  schismatics,  but 
as  rebels  in  heart,  who  wanted  only  opportunity  to  liecome  reb- 
els in  act,  that  he  gave  them  up  to  be  oppressed  and  despoiled ; 
and  to  this  excuse  some  weight  might  have  been  allowed  if 
he  had  strenuously  exerted  himself  to  protect  those  few  colonists, 
who,  though  firmly  attached  to  the  reformed  religion,  were  still 
true  to  the  doctrines  of  nonresistance  and  of  indefeasible  hered- 
itary right.  But  even  th»,se  devoted  royalists  found  that  their 
heresy  was  in  his  view  a  crime  for  which  no  services  or  sacri- 
fices would  atone.  Three  or  four  noblemen,  members  of  the 
Anglican  Church,  who  had  welcomed  him  to  Ireland,  and  had 
sate  in  his  parliament,  represented  to  him  that,  if  the  rule 
which  forbade  any  Protestant  to  possess  any  weapon  were 
strictly  enforced  their  country  houses  would  be  at  the  mercy  of 
the  Eapparees,  and  obtained  from  him  permission  to  keep  arms 
sufficient  for  a  few  servants.  But  Avaux  remonstrated.  The 
indulgence,  he  said,  was  grossly  abused :  these  Protestant  lords 
were  not  to  be  trusted  :  they  were  turning  their  houses  into 
fortresses :  His-  Majesty  Would  soon  have  reason  to  repent 
his  goodness.  These  representations  prevailed ;  and  Roman 
Catholic  troops  were  quartered  in  the  suspected  dwellings.* 

•  Avaux  ,3"]?*i  1689. 
Aug.  6, 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  205 

Still  harder  was  the  lot  of  those  Protestant  clergymen  who 
continued  to  cling,  with  desperate  fidelity,  to  the  cause  of  the 
Lord's  Anointed.  Of  all  the  Anglican  divines  the  one  who 
had  the  largest  share  of  James's  good  graces  seems  to  have  been 
Cartwright.  Whether  Cartwright  could  long  have  continued  to 
be  a  favourite  without  being  an  apostate  may  be  doubted.  He 
died  a  few  weeks  after  his  arriva^  in  Ireland  ;  and  thenceforward 
his  Church  had  no  one  to  plead  her  cause.  Nevertheless  a  few 
of  her  prelates  and  priests  continued  for  a  time  to  teach  what 
they  had  taught  in  the  days  of  the  Exclusion  Bill.  But  it  was 
at  the  peril  of  life  and  limb  that  they  exercised  their  functions. 
Every  wearer  of  a  cassock  was  a  mark  for  the  insults  and 
outrages  of  soldiers  and  Rapparees.  In  the  country  his  house 
was  robbed  and  he  was  fortunate  if  it  was  not  burned  over  his 
head.  He  was  hunted  through  the  streets  of  Dublin  with 
cries  of  "  There  goes  the  devil  of  a  heretic."  Sometimes  he 
was  knocked  down  ;  sometimes  he  was  cudgelled.  *  The  rulers 
of  the  University  of  Dublin,  trained  in  the  Anglican  doctrine 
of  passive  obedience,  had  greeted  James  on  his  first  arrival  at 
the  Castle,  and  had  been  assured  by  him  that  he  would  protect 
them  in  the  enjoyment  of  their  propert^and  their  privileges. 
They  were  now,  without  any  trial,  without  any  accusation, 
thrust  out  of  their  house.  The  communion  plate  of  the  chapel, 
the  books  in  the  library,  the  very  chairs  and  beds  of  the  col- 
legians were  seized.  Part  of  the  building  was  turned  into  a 
magazine,  part  into  a  barrack,  part  into  a  prison.  Simon  Lut- 
trell,  who  was  Governor  of  the  capital,  was,  with  great  difficulty 
and  by  powerful  intercession  induced  to  let  the  ejected  fellows 
and  scholars  depart  in  safety.  He  at  length  permitted  them  to 
remain  at  large,  with  this  condition,  that,  on  pain  of  death,  no 
three  of  them  should  meet  together,  f  No  Protestant  divine 
suffered  more  hardships  than  Doctor  William  King,  Dean  of 
Saint  Patrick's.  He  had.  been  long  distinguished  by  the  fer- 
vour with  which  he  had  inculcated  the  duty  of  passively  obeying 
even  the  worst  rulers.  At  a  later  period,  when  he  had  pub- 
lished a  defence  of  the  revolution,  and  had  accepted  a  mitre 

»  King's  State  of  the  Protestants  in  Ireland,  iii.  19.  t  Ibid.  iii.  15. 


206  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

from  the  new  government,  he  was  reminded  that  he  had  invoked 
the  divine  vengeance  on  the  usurpers,  and  had  declared  himself 
willing  to  die  a  hundred  deaths  rather  than  desert  the  cause  of 
hereditary  right.  He  had  said  that  the  true  religion  had  often 
been  strengthened  by  persecution,  but  could  never  be  strength- 
ened by  rebellion ;  that  it  would  be  a  glorious  day  for  the 
Church  of  England  when  a  whole  cartload  of  her  ministers 
should  go  to  the  gallows  for  the  doctrine  of  nonresistance  ;  and 
that  his  highest  ambition  was  to  be  one  of  such  a  company.  * 
It  is  not  improbable  that,  when  he  spoke  thus,  he  felt  as  he 
spoke.  But  his  principles,  though  they  might  perhaps  have 
'held  out  against  the  severities  and  the  promises  of  William, 
were  not  proof  against  the  ingratitude  of  James.  Human 
nature  at  last  asserted  its  rights.  After  King  had  been  repeat- 
edly imprisoned  by  the  government  to  which  he  was  devotedly 
attached,  after  he  had  been  insulted  and  threatened  in  his  own 
choir  by  the  soldiers,  after  he  had  been  interdicted  from  burying 
in  his  own  churchyard  and  from  preaching  in  his  own  pulpit, 
after  he  had  narrowly  escaped  with  life  from  a  musket-shot 
fired  at  him  in  the  street,  he  began  to  think  the  Whig  theory 
of  government  less  treasonable  and  unchristian  than  it  had 
once  appeared  to  him,  and  persuaded  himself  that  the  oppressed 
Church  might  lawfully  accept  deliverance,  if  God  should  be 
pleased,  by  whatever  means,  to  send  it  to  her. 

In  no  long  time  it  appeared  that  James  would  have  done  well 
to  hearken  to  those  counsellors  who  had  told  him  that  the  acts  by 
which  he  was  try  ing  to  make  himself  popular  in  one  of  his  three 
kingdoms,  would  make  him  odious  in  the  other.  It  was  in  some 
sense  fortunate  for  England  that  after  he  had  ceased  to  reign 
here,  he  continued  during  more  than  a  year  to  reign  in  Ireland. 
The  revolution  had  been  followed  by  a  reaction  of  public  feeling 
in  his  favour.  That  reaction,  if  it  had  been  suffered  to  proceed 
Mninterrupted,  might  perhaps  not  have  ceased  till  he  was  again 
King :  but  it  was  violently  interrupted  by  himself.  He  would 
not  suffer  his  people  to  forget :  he  would  not  suffer  them  to 
hope;  while  they  were  trying  to  find  excuses  for  his  past  errors, 

*  Leslie's  Answer  to  King. 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  207 

and  to  persuade  themselves  that  he  would  not  repeat  those 
errors,  he  forced  upon  them,  in  their  own  despite,  the  conviction 
that  he  was  incorrigible,  that  the  sharpest  discipline  of  adversity 
had  taught  him  nothing,  and  th'at,  if  they  were  weak  enough  to 
recall  him,  they  would  soon  have  to  depose  him  again.  It  was 
in  vain  that  the  Jacobites  put  forth  pamphlets  about  the  cruelty 
with  which  he  had  been  treated  by  those  who  were  nearest  to 
him  in  blood,  about  the  imperious  temper  and  uncourteous  man- 
ners of  William,  about  the  favour  shown  to  the  Dutch,  about  the 
heavy  taxes,  about  the  suspension  of  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act, 
about  the  dangers  which  threatened  the  Church  from  the  enmity 
of  Puritans  and  Latitudinarians.  James  refuted  these  pamph- 
lets far  more  effectually  than  all  the  ablest  and  most  eloquent 
Whig  writers  united  could  have  done.  Every  week  came  the 
news  that  he  had  passed  some  new  Act  for  robbing  or  murdering 
Protestants.  Every  colonist  who  succeeded  in  stealing  across 
the  sea  from  Leinster  to  Holyhead  or  Bristol,  brought  fearful 
reports  of  the  tyranny  under  which  his  brethren  groaned.  What 
impression  these  reports  made  on  the  Protestants  of  our  island 
may  be  easily  inferred  from  the  fact  that  they  moved  the  indig- 
nation of  Ronquillo,  a  Spaniard  and  a  bigoted  member  of  the 
Church  of  Rome.  He  informed  his  Court  that,  though  the  Eng- 
lish laws  against  Popery  might  seem  severe,  they  were  so  much 
mitigated  by  the  prudence  and  humanity  of  the  government, 
that  they  caused  no  annoyance  to  quiet  people  ;  and  he  took 
upon  himself  to  assure  the  Holy  See  that  what  a  Roman  Catho- 
lic suffered  in  London  was  nothing  when  compared  with  what 
a  Protestant  suffered  in  Ireland.* 

The  fugitive  Englishry  found  in  England  warm  sympathy 
and  munificent  relief.  Many  were  received  into  the  houses  of 
friends  and  kinsmen.  Many  were  indebted  for  the  means  of  sul)- 
sistence  to  the  liberality  of  strangers.  Among  those  who  bore 
a  part  in  this  work  of  mercy,  none  contributed  more  largely  or 
less  ostentatiously  than  the  Queen.  The  House  of  Commons 

*  "  En  comparazionde  lo  que  se  liace  In  Irlanda  con  los  Protestantes,  es  nada," 
pn      '    16S9  ;  "  Para  que  vea  Su  Santitad  que  aqui  estan  los  Catolicos  mas  beuig- 
namenta  tratados  que  los  Protestantes  in  Irlanda."    June  19-29. 


208  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

placed  at  the  King's  disposal  fifteen  thousand  pounds  for  the  re- 
lief of' those  refugees  whose  wants  were  most  pressing,  and  re- 
quested  him  to  give  commissions  in  the  army  to  those  who  were 
qualified  for  military  employment.*  An  Act  was  also  passed 
enabling  beneficed  clergymen  who  had  fled  from  Ireland  to  hold 
preferment  in  England.!  Yet  the  interest  which  the  nation  felt 
in  these  unfortunate  guests  was  languid  when  compared  with  the 
interest  excited  by  that  portion  of  the  Saxon  colony  which  still 
maintained  in  Ulster  a  desperate  conflict  against  overwhelming 
odds.  On  this  subject  scarcely  one  dissentient  voice  was  to  be 
heard  in  our  island.  Whigs,  Tories,  nay  even  the  Jacobites 
in  whom  Jacobitism  had  not  extinguished  every  patriotic  senti- 
ment, gloried  in  the  glory  of  Enniskillen  and  Londonderry.  The 
House  of  Commons  was  all  of  one  mind.  '"  This  is  no  time  to  be 
counting  cost,"  said  honest  Birch,  who  well  remembered  the  way 
in  which  Oliver  had  made  war  on  the  Irish.  "  Are  those  brave 
fellows  in  Londonderry  to  be  deserted  ?  If  we  lose  them  will 
not  all  the  world  cry  shame  upon  us  ?  A  boom  across  the  river  ! 
Why  have  we  not  cut  the  boom  in  pieces  ?  Are  our  brethren 
to  perish  almost  in  sight  of  England,  within  a  few  hours 
voyage  of  our  shores  ?  "t  Howe,  the  most  vehement  man  of 
one  party,  declared  that  the  hearts  of  the  people  were  set  on 
Ireland.  Seymour,  the  leader  of  the  other  party,  declared  that, 
though  he  had  not  taken  part  in  setting  up  the  new  government, 
he  should  cordially  support  it  in  all  that  might  be  necessary  for 
the  preservation  of  Ireland.§  The  Commons  appointed  a  com- 
mittee to  enquire  into  the  cause  of  the  delays  and  miscarriages 
which  had  been  all  but  fatal  to  the  Englishry  of  Ulster.  The 
officers  to  whose  treachery  or  cowardice  the  public  ascribed  the 
calamities  of  Londonderry  were  put  under  arrest.  Lundy  was 
sent  to  the  Tower,  Cunningham  to  the  Gate  House.  The  agita- 
tion of  the  public  mind  was  in  some  degree  calmed  by  the  an- 
nouncement that,  before  the  end  of  summer,  an  army  powerful 
enough  to  reestablish  the  English  ascendency  in  Ireland  would 
be  sent  across  Saint  George's  Channel,  and  that  Schomberg 

*  Commons'  Journals,  June  15,  1689.  t  Stat.  1  W.  &  M.  sess.,  c.  29. 

t  Grey's  Debates,  June  19,  1689.  §  Grey's  Debates,  June  22,  1689. 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  209 

would  be  the  General.  In  the  meantime  an  expedition  which 
•was  thought  to  be  sufficient  for  the  relief  of  Londonderry  was 
despatched  from  Liverpool  under  the  command  of  Kirke.  The 
dogged  obstinacy  with  which  this  man  had,  in  spite  of  royal 
solicitations,  adhered  to  his  religion,  and  the  part  which  he  had 
taken  in  the  Revolution,  had  perhaps  entitled  him  to  an  amnesty 
for  past  crimes.  But  it  is  difficult  to  understand  why  the  Gov- 
ernment should  have  selected  for  a  post  of  the  highest  impor- 
tance an  officer  who  was  generally  and  justly  hated,  who  had 
never  shown  eminent  talents  for  war,  and  who,  both  in  Africa 
and  in  England,  had  notoriously  tolerated  among  his  soldiers  a 
licentiousness,  not  only  shocking  to  humanity,  but  also  incom- 
patible with  discipline. 

On  the  sixteenth  of  May,  Kirke's  troops  embarked :  on 
the  twenty-second  they  sailed:  but  contrary  winds  made  the 
passage  slow,  and  forced  the  armament  to  stop  long  at  the 
Isle  of  Man.  Meanwhile  the  Protestants -of  Ulster  were  de- 
fending themselves  with  stubborn  courage  against  a  great  supe- 
riority of  force.  The  Enniskilleners  had  never  ceased  to  wage 
a  vigorous  partisan  war  against  the  native  population.  Early 
in  May  they  marched  to  encounter  a  large  body  of  troops  from 
Connaught,  who  had  made  an  inroad  into  Donegal.  The  Irish 
were  speedily  routed,  and  fled  to  Sligo  with  the  loss  of  a  hun- 
dred and  twenty  men  killed  and  sixty  taken.  Two  small  pieces 
of  artillery  and  several  horses  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  con- 
querors. Elated  by  this  success,  the  Enniskilleners  soon  in- 
vaded the  county  of  Cavan,  drove  before  them  fifteen  hundred 
of  James's  troops,  took  and  destroyed  the  castle  of  Ballincarrig, 
reputed  the  strongest  in  that  part  of  the  kingdom,  and  carried 
off  the  pikes  and  muskets  of  the  garrison.  The  next  incursion 
was  into  Meath.  Three  thousand  oxen  and  two  thousand  sheep 
were  swept  away  and  brought  safe  to  the  little  island  in  Lough 
Erne.  These  daring  exploits  spread  terror  even  to  the  gates 
of  Dublin.  Colonel  Hugh  Sutherland  was  ordered  to  march 
against  Enniskillen  with  a  regiment  of  dragoons  and  two  reg- 
iments of  foot.  He  carried  with  him  arms  for  the  native  peas- 
antry, and  many  repaired  to  his  standard.  The  Enniskilleners 
VOL.  III.— 14 


210  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

did  not  wait  till  he  came  into  their  neighbourhood,  but  advanced 
to  encounter  him.  He  declined  an  action,  and  retreated,  leav- 
ing his  stores  at  Belturbet  under  the  care  of  a  detachment  of 
three  hundred  soldiers.  The  Protestants  attacked  Belturbet 
with  vigour,  made  their  way  into  a  lofty  house  which  overlooked 
the  town,  and  thence  opened  such  a  fire  that  in  two  hours  the 
garrison  surrendered.  Seven  hundred  muskets,  a  great  quantity 
of  powder,  many  horses,  many  sacks  of  biscuits,  many  barrels 
of  meal,  were  taken,  and  were  sent  to  Enniskillen.  The  boats 
which  brought  these  precious  spoils  were  joyfully  welcomed. 
The  fear  of  hunger  was  removed.  While  the  aboriginal  popu- 
lation had,  in  many  counties,  altogether  neglected  the  cultiva- 
tion of  the  earth,  in  the  expectation,  it  should  seem,  that  maraud- 
ing would  prove  an  inexhaustible  resource,  the  colonists,  true 
to  the  provident  and  industrious  character  of  their  race,  had,  in 
the  midst  of  war,  not  omitted  carefully  to  till  the  soil  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  their  strongholds.  The  harvest  was  now  not 
far  remote  ;  and,  till  the  harvest,  the  food  taken  from  the  enemy 
would  be  amply  sufficient.* 

Yet  in  the  midst  of  success  and  plenty,  the  Enniskilleners 
were  tortured  by  a  cruel  anxiety  for  Londonderry.  They 
were  bound  to  the  defenders  of  that  city,  not  only  by  religious 
and  national  sympathy,  but  by  common  interest.  For  there 
could  be  no  doubt  that,  if  Londonderry  fell,  the  whole  Irish 
army  would  instantly  march  in  irresistible  force  upon  Lough 
Erne.  Yet  what  could  be  done  ?  Some  brave  men  were  for 
making  a  desperate  attempt  to  relieve  the  besieged  city  ;  but 
the  odds  were  too  great.  Detachments  however  were  sent 
which  infested  the  rear  of  the  blockading  army,  cut  off  sup- 
plies, and,  on  one  occasion,  carried  away  the  horses  of  three 
entire  troops  of  cavalry,  f  Still  the  line  of  posts  which  sur- 
rounded Londonderry  by  land  remained  unbroken:  The  river 
was  still  strictly  closed  and  guarded.  Within  the  walls  the 
distress  had  become  extreme.  So  early  as  the  eighth  of  June 

*  Hamilton's  True  Relation  ;  Mac  Cormick's  Further  Account.  Of  the  Island 
generally,  Avatix  says,  "  On  n'attend  rien  de  cette  recolte  cy,  les  paysans  ayant 
presque  tons  pris  les  armes." — Letter  to  Louvois,  March  19-29,  1689. 

t  Hamilton's  True  Relation. 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  211 

horseflesh  was  almost  the  only  meat  which  could  be  purchased ; 
and  of  horseflesh  the  supply  was  scanty.  It  was  necessary  to 
make  up  the  deficiency  with  tallow  ;  and  even  tallow  was  doled 
cut  with  a  parsimonious  hand. 

On  the  fifteenth  of  June  a  gleam  of  hope  appeared.  The 
sentinels  on  the  top  of  the  Cathedral  saw  sails  nine  miles  off 
in  the  hay  of  Lough  Foyle.  Thirty  vessels  of  different  sizes 
were  counted.  Signals  were  made  from  the  steeples  and  re- 
turned from  the  mastheads,  but  were  imperfectly  understood  on 
both  sides.  At  last  a  messenger  from  the  fleet  eluded  the  Irish 
sentinels,  dived  under  the  boom,  and  informed  the  garrison  that 
Kirke  had  arrived  from  England  with  troops,  arms,  ammunition, 
and  provisions  to  relieve  the  city.* 

In  Londonderry  expectation  was  at  the  height :  but  a  few 
hours  of  feverish  joy  were  followed  by  weeks  of  misery.  Kirke 
thought  it  unsafe  to  make  any  attempt,  either  by  land  or  by 
water,  on  the  lines  of  the  besiegers,  and  retired  to  the  entrance 
of  Lough  Foyle,  where,  during  several  weeks,  he  lay  inactive. 

And  now  the  pressure  of  famine  became  every  day  more  se- 
vere. A  strict  search  was  made  in  all  the  recesses  of  all  the 
houses  of  the  city;  and  some  provisions,  which  had  been  con- 
cealed in  cellars  by  people  who  had  since  died  or  made  their 
escape,  were  discovered  and  carried  to  the  magazines.  The 
stock  of  cannon  balls  was  almost  exhausted  ;  and  their  place 
was  supplied  by  brickbats  coated  with  lead.  Pestilence  began, 
as  usual,  to  make  its  appearance  in  the  trail)  of  hunger.  Fif- 
teen officers  died  of  fever  in  one  day.  The  Governor  Baker  was 
among  those  who  sank  under  the  disease.  His  place  was  sup- 
plied by  Colonel  John  Mitchelburne.t 

Meanwhile  it  was  known  at  Dublin  that  Kirke  and  his 
squadron  were  on  the  coast  of  Ulster.  The  alarm  was  great 
at  the  Castle.  Even  before  this  news  arrived,  Avaux  had 
given  it  as  his  opinion  that  Richard  Hamilton  was  unequal  to 
the  difficulties  of  the  situation.  It  had  therefore  been  resolved 
that  Rosen  should  take  the  chief  command.  He  was  now  sent 
down  with  all  speed. t 

•  Walter.  f  Walkar ;  Mackenzie  t  Avaux,  June  16-96. 1689. 


212  HISTORT   OF   ENGLAND. 

On  the  nineteenth  of  June  he  arrived  at  the  head  quarters 
of  the  besieging  army.  At  first  he  attempted  to  undermine  the 
walls  ;  but  his  plan  was  discovered  ;  and  he  was  compelled  to 
abandon  it  after  a  sharp  fight,  in  which  more  than  a  hundred 
of  his  men  were  slain.  Then  his  fury  rose  to  a  strange  pitch. 
He,  an  old  soldier,  a  Marshal  of  France  in  expectancy,  trained 
in  the  school  of  the  greatest  generals,  accustomed,  during  many 
years,  to  scientific  war,  to  be  bafiied  by  a  mob  of  country  gen- 
tlemen, farmers,  shopkeepers,  who  were  protected  only  by  a  wall 
which  any  good  engineer  would  at  once  have  pronounced  unten- 
able !  He  raved,  he  blasphemed,  in  a  language  of  his  own, 
made  up  of  all  the  dialects  spoken  from  the  Baltic  to  the  Atlan- 
tic. He  would  raze  the  city  to  the  ground ;  he  would  spare  no 
living  thing ;  no,  not  the  young  girls  ;  not  the  babies  at  the 
breast.  As  to  the  leaders,  death  was  too  light  a  punishment 
for  them  :  he  would  rack  them  :  he  would  roast  them  alive.  In 
his  rage  he  ordered  a  shell  to  be  flung  into  the  town  with  a  let- 
ter containing  a  horrible  menace.  He  would,  he  said,  gather 
into  one  body  all  the  Protestants  who  had  remained  at  their 
homes  between  Charlemont  and  the  sea,  old  men,  women,  chil- 
dren, many  of  them  near  in  blood  and  affection  to  the  defenders 
of  Londonderry.  No  protection,  whatever  might  be  the  author- 
ity by  which  it  had  been  given,  should  be  respected.  The  mul- 
titude thus  brought  together  should  be  driven  under  the  walls 
of  Londonderry,  and  should  there  be  starved  to  death  in  the 
sight  of  their  countrymen,  their  friends,  their  kinsmen.  This 
was  no  idle  threat. .  Parties  were  instantly  sent  out  in  all  direc- 
tions to  collect  victims.  At  dawn,  on  the  morning  of  the  second 
of  July,  hundreds  of  Protestants,  who  were  charged  with  no 
crime,  who  were  incapable  of  bearing  arms,  and  many  of  whom 
had  protections  granted  by  James,  were  dragged  to  the  gates  of 
the  city.  It  was  imagined  that  the  piteous  sight  would  quell 
the  spirit  of  the  colonists.  But  the  only  effect  was  to  rouse 
that  s'pirifc  to  still  greater  energy.  An  order  was  immediately 
put  forth  that  no  man  should  utter  the  word  Surrender  on  pain 
of  death  ;  and  no  man  uttered  that  word.  Several  prisoners  of 
high  rank  were  in  the  town.  Hitherto  they  had  been  well 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  213 

treated,  and  had  received  as  good  rations  as  were  measured  out 
to  the  garrison.  They  were  now  closely  confined.  A  gallows 
was  erected  on  one  of  the  bastions  ;  and  a  message  was  conveyed 
to  Rosen,  requesting  him  to  send  a  confessor  instantly  to  pre- 
pare his  friends  for  death.  The  prisoners  in  great  dismay  wrote 
to  the  savage  Livonian,  but  received  no  answer.  They  then 
addressed  themselves  to  their  countryman,  Richard  Hamilton. 
They  were  willing,  they  said,  to  shed  their  blood  for  their  King ; 
but  they  thought  it  hard  to  die  the  ignominious  death  of  thieves 
in  consequence  of  the  barbarity  of  their  own  companions  in  arms. 
Hamilton,  though  a  man  of  lax  principles,  was  not  cruel.  He 
had  been  disgusted  by  the  inhumanity  of  Rosen,  but,  being  only 
second  in  command,  could  not  venture  to  express  publicly  all 
that  he  thought.  He  however  remonstrated  strongly.  Some 
Irish  officers  felt  on  this  occasion  as  it  was  natural  that  brave 
men  should  feel,  and  declared,  weeping  with  pity  and  indigna- 
tion, that  they  should  never  cease  to  have  in  their  ears  the  cries 
of  the  poor  women  and  children  who  had  been  driven  at  the 
point  of  the  pike  to  die  of  famine  between  the  camp  and  the 
city.  Rosen  persisted  during  forty-eight  hours.  In  that  time 
many  unhappy  creatures  perished  :  but  Londonderry  held  out 
as  resolutely  as  ever ;  and  he  saw  that  his  crime  was  likely  to 
produce  nothing  but  hatred  and  obloquy.  He  at  length  gave 
way,  and  suffered  the  survivors  to  withdraw.  The  garrison 
then  took  down  the  gallows  which  had  been  erected  on  the  bas- 
tion.* 

When  the  tidings  of  these  events  reached  Dublin,  James, 
though  by  no  means  prone  to  compassion,  was  startled  by  an 
atrocity  of  which  the  civil  wars  of  England  had  furnished  no 
example,  and  was  displeased  by  learning  that  protections,  given 
by  his  authority,  and  guaranteed  by  his  honour,  had  been  pub- 
licly declared  to  be  nullities.  He  complained  to  the  French 
ambassador,  and  said,  with  a  warmth  which  the  occasion  fully 
justified,  that  Rosen  was  a  barbarous  Muscovite.  Melfort  could 

*  "Walker ;  Mackenzie  ;  Light  to  the  Blind  :  King.  iii.  13 ;  Leslie's  Answer  to 
Kine  ;  Life  of  James,  ii.  3(X>.  I  ought  to  say  that  on  this  occasion  King  is  unjust 
to  James. 


214  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

not  refrain  from  adding  that,  if  Rosen  had  been  an  Englishman, 
he  would  have  been  hanged.  Avaux  was  utterly  unable  to 
understand  this  effeminate  sensibility.  In  his  opinion,  nothing 
had  been  done  that  was  at  all  reprehensible  ;  and  he  had  some 
difficulty  in  commanding  himself  when  he  heard  the  King  and 
the  secretary  blame,  in  strong  language,  an  act  of  wholesome 
severity.*  Jn  truth  the  French  ambassador  and  the  French 
general  were  well  paired.  There  was  a  great  difference,  doubt- 
less, in  appearance  and  manner,  between  the  handsome,  graceful, 
and  refined  politician,  whose  dexterity  and  suavity  had  been 
renowned  at  the  most  polite  courts  of  Europe,  and  the  military 
adventurer,  whose  look  and  voice  reminded  all  who  came  near 
him  that  he  had  been  born  in  a  half  savage  country,  that  he 
had  risen  from  the  ranks,  and  that  he  had  once  been  sentenced 
to  death  for  marauding.  But  the  heart  of  the  diplomatist  was 
really  even  more  callous  than  that  of  the  soldier. 

Rosen  was  recalled  to  Dublin ;  and  Richard  Hamilton  was 
again  left  in  the  chief  command.  He  tried  gentler  means  than 
those  which  had  brought  so  much  reproach  on  his  predecessor. 
Ko  trick,  no  lie,  which  was  thought  likely  to  discourage  the 
starving  garrison  was  spared.  One  day  a  great  shout  was  raised 
by  the  whole  Irish  camp.  The  defenders  of  Londonderry  were 
soon  informed  that  the  army  of  James  was  rejoicing  on  account 
of  the  fall  of  Enniskillen.  They  were  told  that  they  had  now  no 
chance  of  being  relieved,  and  were  exhorted  to  save  their  lives  by 
capitulating.  They  consented  to  negotiate.  But  what  they  asked 
was,  that  they  should  be  permitted  to  depart  armed  and  in  mili- 
tary array,  by  land  or  by  water  at  their  choice.  They  demand- 
ed hostages  for  the  exact  fulfilment  of  these  conditions,  and 
insisted  that  the  hostages  should  be  sent  on  board  of  the  fleet 
which  lay  in  Lough  Foyle.  Such  terms  Hamilton  durst  not 
grant:  the  Governors  would  abate  nothing:  the  treaty  was 
broken  off;  and  the  conflict  recommenced.! 

By  this  time  July  was  far  advanced ;  and  the  state  of  the 

*  Leslie's  Answer  to  King  ;  Avaux,  July  5-15,  1689.  "  Je  trouvay  1'expresslon 
bien  forte  :  niais  je  ne  voulois  rien  r^pondre,  car  le  Roy  s'estoit  desja  fort 
emportA" 

t  Mackenzie. 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  215 

city  was,  hour  by  hour,  becoming  more  frightful.  The  number 
of  the  inhabitants  had  been  thinned  more  by  famine  and  disease 
than  by  the  fire  of  the  enemy.  Ytt  that  fire  was  sharper  and 
more  constant  than  ever.  One  of  the  gates  was  beaten  in  :  one 
of  the  bastions  was  laid  in  ruins  ;  but  the  breaches  made  by  day 
were  repaired  by  night  with  indefatigable  activity.  Every 
attack  was  still  repelled.  But  the  fighting  men  of  the  garrison 
were  so  much  exhausted  that  they  could  scarcely  keep  their 
legs.  Several  of  them,  in  the  act  of  striking  at  the  enemy,  fell 
down  from  mere  weakness.  A  very  small  quantity  of  grain 
remained,  and  was  doled  out  by  mouthfuls.  The  stock  ot  salted 
hides  was  considerable,  and  by  gnawing  them  the  garrison 
appeased  the  rage  of  hunger.  Dogs,  fattened  on  the  blood  of 
the  slain  who  lay  uuburied  round  the  town,  were  luxuries  which 
few  could  afford  to  purchase.  The  price  of  a  whelp's  paw  was 
five  shillings  and  sixpence.  Nine  horses  were  still  alive,  and 
but  barely  alive.  They  were  so  lean  that  little  meat  was  likely 
to  be  found  upon  them.  It  was,  however,  determined  to  slaugh 
ter  them  for  food.  The  peopled  perished  so  fast,  that  it  was 
impossible  for  the  survivors  to  perform  the  rites  of  sepulture. 
There  was  scarcely  a  cellar  in  which  some  corpse  was  not  decay- 
ing. Such  was  the  extremity  of  distress  that  the  rats  who  came 
to  feast  in  those  hideous  dens  were  eagerly  hunted  and  greedily 
devoured.  A  small  fish,  caught  in  the  river,  was  not  to  be  pur- 
chased with  money.  The  only  price  for  which  such  a  treasure 
could  be  obtained  was  some  handfuls  of  oatmeal.  Leprosies, 
such  as  strange  and  unwholesome  diet  engenders,  made  existence 
a  constant  torment.  The  whole  city  was  poisoned  by  the  stench 
exhaled  from  the  bodies  ot  the  dead  and  of  the  half  dead.  That 
there  should  be  fits  of  discontent  and  insubordination  among 
men  enduring  such  misery  was  inevitable.  At  one  moment  it 
was  suspected  that  Walker  had  laid  up  somewhere  a  secret  store 
of  food,  and  was  revelling  in  private,  while  he  exhorted  others 
to  suffer  resolutely  for  the  good  cause.  His  house  was  strictly 
examined  :  his  innocence  was  fully  proved  :  he  regained  his 
popularity  ;  and  the  garrison,  with  death  in  near  prospect, 
thron-jod  to  ths  cathedral  to  hear  him  preach,  drank  in  his  earn- 


216  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

est  eloquence  with  delight,  and  went  forth  from  the  house  of 
God  with  haggard  faces  and  tottering  steps,  but  with  spirit  still 
unsubdued.  There  were,  indeed,  some  secret  plottiugs.  A  very 
few  obscure  traitors  opened  communications  with  the  enemy. 
But  it  was  necessary  that  all  such  dealings  should  be  carefully 
concealed.  None  dared  to  utter  publicly  any  words  save  words 
of  defiance  and  stubborn  resolution.  Even  in  that  extremity  the 
general  cry  was,  "  No  surrender."  And  there  were  not  wanting 
voices  which,  in  low  tones,  added,  "  First  the  horses  and  hides ; 
and  then  the  prisoners ;  and  then  each  other."  It  was  after- 
wards related,  half  in  jest,  yet  not  without  a  horrible  mixture 
of  earnest,  that  a  corpulent  citizen,  whose  bulk  presented  a 
strange  contrast  to  the  skeletons  which  surrounded' him,  thought 
it  expedient  to  conceal  himself  from  the  numerous  eyes  which 
followed  him  with  cannibal  looks  whenever  he  appeared  in  the 
streets.* 

It  was  no  slight  aggravation  of  the  sufferings  of  the  garrison 
that  all  this  time  the  English  ships  were  seen  far  off  in  Lough 
Foyle.  Communication  between  the  fleet  and  the  city  was 
almost  impossible.  One  diver  who  had  attempted  to  pass  the 
boom  was  drowned.  Another  was  hanged.  The  language  of 
signals  was  hardly  intelligible.  Ou  the  thirteenth  of  July,  how- 
ever, a  piece  of  paper  sewed  up  in  a  cloth  button  came  to 
Walker's  hands.  It  was  a  letter  from  Kirke,  and  contained 
assurances  of  speedy  relief.  But  more  than  a  fortnight  of  intense 
misery  had  since  elapsed  ;  and  the  hearts  of  the  most  sanguine 
were  sick  with  deferred  hope.  By  no  art  could  the  "provisions 
which  were  left  be  made  to  hold  out  two  days  more.f 

Just  at  this  time  Kirke  received  from  England  a  despatch, 
which  contained  positive  orders  that  Londonderry  should  be  re- 
lieved. He  accordingly  determined  to  make  an  attempt  which, 

*  "Walker's  Account.  "  The  fat  man  in  Londonderry  "  became  a  proverbial 
expression  for  a  person  whose  prosperity  excited  the  enry  and  cupidity  of  his 
less  fortunate  neighbours. 

t  This,  according  to  Narcissus  Luttrtll.  was  the  report  made  by  Captain 
Withers,  afterwards  a  highly  distinguished  officer,  on  whom  Pope  wrote  an 
epitaph. 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  217 

as  far  as  appears,  he  might  have  made,  with  at  least  an  equally 
fair  prospect  of  success  six  weeks  earlier.* 

Among  the  merchant  ships  which  had  come  to  Lough  Foyle 
under  his  convoy  was  one  called  the  Mountjoy.  The  master, 
Micaiah  Browning,  a  native  of  Londonderry,  had  brought  from 
England  a  large  cargo  of  provisions.  He  had,  it  is  said,  repeat- 
edly remonstrated  against  the  inaction  of  the  armament.  He 
now  eagerly  volunteered  to  take  the  first  risk  of  succouring  his 
fellow  citizens  ;  and  his  offer  was  accepted.  Andrew  Douglas, 
master  of  the  Phoenix,  who  had  on  ..hoard  a  great  quantity  of 
meal  from  Scotland,  was  willing  to  share  the  danger  and  the 
honour.  The  two  merchantmen  were  to  be  escorted  by  the 
Dartmouth,  a  frigate  of  thirty-six  guns,  commanded  by  Captain 
John  Leake,  afterwards  an  admiral  of  great  fame. 

It  was  the  twenty-eighth  of  July.  The  sun  had  just  set : 
the  evening  sermon  in  the  cathedral  was  over :  and  the  heart- 
broken congregation  had  separated;  when  the  sentinels  on  the 
tower  saw  the  sails  of  three  vessels  coming  up  the  Foyle.  Soon 
there  was  a  stir  in  the  Irish  camp.  The  besiegers  were  on  the 
alert  for  miles  along  both  shores.  The  ships  were  in  extreme 
peril :  for  the  river  was  low ;  and  the  only  navigable  channel 
ran  very  near  to  the  left  bank,  where  the  head  quarters  of  the 
enemy  had  been  fixed,  and  where  the  batteries  were  most  numer- 
ous. Leake  performed  his  duty  with  a  skill  and  spirit  worthy 
of  his  noble  profession,  exposed  his  frigate  to  cover  the  mer- 
chantmen, and  used  his  guns  with  great  effect.  At  length  the 
little  squadron  came  to  the  place  of  peril.  Then  the  Mouutjoy 
took  the.  lead,  and  went  right  at  the  boom.  The  huge  barricade 
cracked  and  gave  way  :  but  the  shock  was  such  that  the  Mount- 
joy  rebounded,  and  stuck  in  the  mud.  A  yell  of  triumph  rose 
from  the  banks  :  the  Irish  rushed  to  their  boats,  and  were  pre- 

*  The  despatch,  which  positively  commanded  Kirke  to  attack  the  boom,  was 
signed  by  Schomberg,  who  had  already  been  appointed  commander  in  chief  of  all 
the  English  forces  in  Ireland.  A  copy  of  it  is  among  the  Nairne  MSS.  in  the 
Bodleian  Library.  Wodrow,  on  no  better  authority  than  the  gossip  of  a  country 
parish  in  Dumbartonshire,  attributes  the  relief  of  Londonderry  to  the  exhorta- 
tions of  a  heroic  Scotch  preacher  named  Gordon.  lam  inclined  to  think  that 
Kirke  was  more  likely  to  be  influenced  bv  a  peremptory  order  from  Schombcrg, 
than  by  the  united  eloquence  of  a  whole  syiiocUof  presbyterian  divines. 


218  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

paring  to  board  :  but  the  Dartmouth  poured  on  them  a  well  di- 
rected broadside  which  threw  them  into  disorder.  Just  then 
the  Phoenix  dashed  at  the  breach  which  the  Mountjoy  had  made 
and  was  in  a  moment  within  the  fence.  Meantime  the  tide  was 
rising  fast.  The  Mouutjoy  began  to  move,  and  soon  passed  safe 
through  the  broken  stakes  and  floating  spars.  But  her  brave 
master  was  no  more.  A  shot  from  one  of  the  batteries  had  struck 
him;  and  he  died  by  the  most  enviable  of  all  deaths,  in  sight 
of  the  city  which  was  his  birthplace,  which  was  his  home,  and 
which  had  just  been  saved  by  his  courage  and  selfdevotion  from 
the  most  frightful  form  of  destruction.  The  night  had  closed 
in  before  the  conflict  at  the  boom  began  :  but  the  flash  of  the 
guns  was  seen,  and  the  noise  heard,  by  the  lean  and  ghastly  mul- 
titude which  covered  the  walls  of  the  city.  When  the  Mount- 
joy  grounded,  and  when  the  shout  of  triumph  rose  from  the  Irish 
on  both  sides  of  the  river,  the  hearts  of  the  besieged  died  with- 
in them.  One  who  endured  the  unutterable  anguish  of  that 
moment  has  told  us  that  they  looked  fearfully  livid  in  each 
other's  eyes.  Even  after  the  barricade  had  been  passed,  there 
was  a  terrible  half  hour  of  suspense.  It  was  ten  o'clock  before 
the  ships  arrived  at  the  quay.  The  whole  population  was  there 
to  welcome  them.  A-screen  made  of  casks  filled  with  earth 
was  hastily  thrown  up  to  protect  the  landing  place  from  the  bat- 
teries on  the  other  side  of  the  river ;  and  then  the  work  of  un- 
loading began.  First  were  rolled  on  shore  barrels  containing 
six  thousand  bushels  of  meal.  Then  came  great  cheeses,  casks 
of  beef,  flitches  of  bacon,  kegs  of  butter,  sacks  of  pease  and  bis- 
cuit, ankers  of  brandy.  Not  many  hours  before,  half  a  pound 
of  tallow  and  three  quarters  of  a  pound  of  salted  hide  had  been 
weighed  out  with  niggardly  care  to  every  fighting  man.  The 
ration  which  each  now  received  was  three  pounds  of  flour,  two 
pounds  of  beef,  and  a  pint  of  pease.  It  is  easy  to  imagine  with 
what  tears  grace  was  said  over  the  suppers  of  that  evening. 
There  was  little  sleep  on  either  side  of  the  wall.  The  bonfires 
shone  bright  along  the  whole  circuit  of  the  ramparts.  The  Irish 
guns  continued  to  roar  all  night ;  and  all  night  the  bells  of  the 
rescued  city  made  answer  to  the  Irish  guns  with  a  peal  of  joy- 


'WILLIAM    AND    MART.  219 

ous  defiance.  Through  the  three  following  days  the  batteries 
of  the  enemy  continued  to  play.  But,  on  the  third  night,  flames 
were  seen  arising  from  the  camp  ;  and,  when  the  first  of  August 
dawned,  a  line  of  smoking  ruins  marked  the  site  lately  occupied 
by  the  huts  of  the  besiegers ;  and  the  citizens  saw  far  off  the 
long  column  of  pikes  and  standards  retreating  up  the  left  bank 
of  the  Foyle  towards  Strabane.* 

So  ended  this  great  siege,  the  most  memorable  in  the  annals 
of  the  British  isles.  It  had  lasted  a  hundred  and  five  days. 
The  garrison  had  been  reduced  from  about  seven  thousand 
effective  men  to  about  three  thousand.  The  loss  of  the  be- 
siegers cannot  be  precisely  ascertained.  Walker  estimated  it  at 
eight  thousand  men.  It  is  certain  from  the  despatches  of  Avaux 
that  the  regiments  which  returned  from  the  blockade  had  been 
so  much  thinned  that  many  of  them  were  not  more  than  two 
hundred  strong.  Of  thirty -six  French  gunners  who  had  superin- 
tended the  cannonading,  thirty-one  had  been  killed  or  disabled. t 
The  means  both  of  attack  and  of  defence  had  undoubtedly  been 
such  as  would  have  moved  the  great  warriors  of  the  Continent 
to  laughter  ;  and  this  is  the  very  circumstance  which  gives  so 
peculiar  an  interest  to  the  history  of  the  contest.  It  was  a 
contest,  not  between  engineers>  but  between  nations  ;  and  the 
victory  remained  with  the  nation  which,  though  inferior  in  num- 
ber, was  superior  in  civilisation,  in  capacity  for  self  government, 
and  in  stubbornness  of  resolution.  $ 

As  soon  as  it  was  known  that  the  Irish  army  had  retired,  a 
deputation  from  the  city  hastened  to  Lough  Foyle,  and  invited 
Kirke  to  take  the  command.  He  came  accompanied  by  a  long 

*  Walker;  Mackenzie;  Histoire  de  la  Revolution  d'Irlande,  Amsterdam, 
1691  ;  London  Gazette  Aug.  5,  12,  1GS9 ;  Letter  of  Buchaii  nnioug  the  Nainie 
MSS.  ;  Life  of  Sir  John  Leake  ;  The  Londeriad  ;  Observations  on  Air.  Walker's 
Account  of  the  Siege  of  Londonderry,  licensed  Oct.  4,  1689. 

t  Avaux  to  Seignelay,  July  18-28  ;  to  Lewis,  Aug.  9-19. 

J  "  You  will  see  here,  as  you  have  all  along,  that  the  tradesmen  of  London- 
deny  had  more  skill  in  their  defence  than  the  great  officers  of  the  Irish  Army 
In  their  attacks." — Light  to  the  Blind-  The  author  of  this  work  is  furious  against 
the  Irish  gunners.  The  boom,  he  thinks,  would  never  have  been  broken  if  they 
had  -.lone  their  duty.  Were  they  drunk  ?  Were  they  traitors  ?  He  does  not  de- 
ter mine  the  point.  "  Lord,"  he  exclaim?,  "  who  seest  the  hearts  of  people,  we 
leave  the  judgment  of  this  affair  to  thy  mercy,  In  the  interim  those  gunners 
lost  Ireland." 


220  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

train  of  officers,  and  was  received  in  state  by  the  two  Governors, 
who  delivered  up  to  him  the  authority  which,  under  the  pressure 
of  necessity,  they  had  assumed.  He  remained  only  a  few  days  ; 
but  he  had  time  to  show  enough  of  the  incurable  vices  of  his 
character  to  disgust  a  population  distinguished  by  austere  morals 
and  ardent  public  spirit.  There  was,  however,  no  outbreak. 
The  city  was  in  the  highest  good  humour.  Such  quantities  of 
provisions  had  been  landed  from  the  fleet  that  there  was  in  every 
house  a  plenty  never  before  known.  A  few  days  earlier  a  man 
hud  been  glad  to  obtain  for  twenty  pence  a  mouthful  of  carrion 
scraped  from  the  bones  of  a  starved  horse.  A  pound  of  good 
beef  was  now  sold  for  three  halfpence.  Meanwhile  all  hands 
were  busied  in  removing  corpses  which  had  been  thinly  covered 
with  earth,  in  filing  up  the  holes  which  the  shells  had  ploughed 
in  the  ground,  and  in  repairing  the  battered  roofs  of  the  houses. 
The  recollection  of  past  dangers  and  privations,  and  the  con- 
sciousness of  having  deserved  well  of  the  English  nation  and  of 
all  Protestant  Churches,  swelled  the  hearts  of  the  townspeople 
with  honest  pride.  That  pride  grew  stronger  when  they  received 
from  William  a  letter,  acknowledging,  in  the  most  affectionate 
language,  the  debt  which  he  owed  to  the  brave  and  trusty  citi- 
zens of  his  good  city.  The  whole  population  crowded  to  the 
Diamond  to  hear  the  royal  epistle  read.  At  the  close  all  the 
guns  on  the  ramparts  sent  forth  a  voice  of  joy  :  all  the  ships  in 
the  river  made  answer :  barrels  of  ale  were  broken  up  ;  and  the 
health  of  their  Majesties  was  drunk  with  shouts  and  volleys  of 
musketry. 

Five  generations  have  since  passed  away  ;  and  still  the  wall 
of  Londonderry  is  to  the, Protestants  of  Ulster  what  the  trophy 
of  Marathon  was  to  the  Athenians.  A  lofty  pillar,  rising  from 
a  bastion  which  bore  during  many  weeks  the  heaviest  fire  of  the 
enemy  is  seen  far  up  and  far  down  the  Foyle.  On  the  summit 
is  the  statue  of  Walker,  such  as  when,  in  the  last  and  most  terri- 
ble emergency,  his  eloquence  roused  the  fainting  courage  of  his 
brethren.  In  one  hand  he  grasps  a  Bible.  The  other  pointing 
down  the  river,  seems  to  direct  the  eyes  of  his  famished  audience 
to  the  English  topmasts  in  the  distant  bay.  Such  a  monument 


WILLIAM   AND   MART.  221 

was  well  deserved  :  yet  it  was  scarcely  needed  :  for  in  truth 
the  whole  city  is  to  this  day  a  monument  of  the  gre/it  deliver- 
ance. The  wall  is  carefully  preserved ;  nor  would  any  plea  of 
health  or  convenience  be  held  by  the  inhabitants  sufficient  to 
justify  the  demolition  of  that  sacred  enclosure  which,  in  the  evil 
time,  gave  shelter  to  their  race  and  their  religion.*  The  sum- 
mit of  the  ramparts  forms  a  pleasant  walk.  The  bastions  have 
been  turned  into  little  gardens.  Here  and  there,  among  the 
shrubs  and  flowers,  may  be  seen  the  old  culverins  which  scattered 
bricks,  cased  with  lead,  among  the  Irish  ranks.  One  antique 
gun,  the  gift  of  the  Fishmongers  of  London,  was  distinguished, 
during  the  hundred  and  five  memorable  days,  by  the  loudness 
of  its  report,  and  still  bears  the  name  of  Roaring  Meg.  The 
cathedral  is  filled  with  relics  and  trophies.  In  the  vestibule  is 
a  huge  shell,  one  of  many  hundreds  of  shells  which  were  thrown 
into  the  city.  Over  the  altar  are  still  seen  the  French  flag- 
staves,  taken  by  the  garrison  in  a  desperate  sally.  The  white 
ensigns  of  the  House  of  Bourbon  have  long  been  dnst  :  but 
their  place  has  been  supplied  by  new  banners,  the  work  of  the 
fairest  hands  of  Ulster.  The  anniversary  of  the  day  on  which 
the  gates  were  closed,  and  the  anniversary  of  the  day  on  which 
the  siege  was  raised,  have  been  down  to  our  own  time  celebrated 
by  salutes,  processions,  banquets,  and  sermons :  Lundy  has  been 
executed  in  effigy  ;  and  the  sword,  said  by  tradition  to  be  that 
of  Maumont,  has,  on  great  occasions,  been  carried  in  triumph. 
There  is  still  a  Walker  Club  and  a  Murray  Club.  The  humble 
tombs  of  the  Protestant  captains  have  been  carefully  sought 
out,  repaired,  and  embellished.  It  is  impossible  not  to  respect 
the  sentiment  which  indicates  itself  by  these  tokens.  It  is  a 
sentiment  which  belongs  to  the  higher  and  purer  part  of  human 
nature,  and  which  adds  not  a  little  to  the  strength  of  states. 
A  people  which  takes  no  pride  in  the  noble  achievements 
of  remote  ancestors  will  never  achieve  anything  worthy  to  be 
remembered  with  pride  by  remote  descendants.  Yet  it  is 
impossible  for  the  moralist  or  the  statesman  to  look  with  un- 

*  In  a  collection  entitled  "  Periana,"  -which  was  published  more  than  sixty 
years  ago,  is  a  curious  letter  on  this  subject. 


222  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

mixed  complacency  on  the  solemnities  with  which  Londonderry 
commemorates  her  deliverance,  and  on  the  honours  which  she 
pays  to  those  who  saved  her.  Unhappily  the  animosities  of  her 
brave  champions  have  descended  with  their  glory.  The  faults 
which  are  ordinarily  found  in  dominant  castes  and  dominant 
sects  have  not  seldom  shown  themselves  without  disguise  at  her 
festivities  ;  and  even  with  the  expressions  of  pious  gratitude 
which  have  resounded  from  her  pulpits  have  too  often  been 
mingled  words  of  wrath  and  defiance. 

The  Irish  army  which  had  retreated  to  Strabane  remained 
there  but  a  very  short  time.  The  spirit  of  the  troops  had 
been  depressed  by  their  recent  failure,  and  was  soon  completely 
cowed  by  the  news  of  a  great  disaster  in  another  quarter. 

Three  weeks  before  this  time  the  Duke  of  Berwick  had  gained 
an  advantage  over  a  detachment  of  the  Enniskilleners,  and  had, 
by  their  own  confession,  killed  or  taken  more  than  fifty  of  them. 
They  were  in  hopes  of  obtaining  some  assistance  from  Kirke.  to 
whom  they  had  sent  a  deputation  ;  and  they  still  persisted  in 
rejecting  all  terms  offered  by  the  enemy.  It  was  therefore 
determined  at  Dublin  that  an  attack  should  be  made  upon  them 
from  several  quarters  at  once.  Macarthy,  who  had  been 
rewarded  for  his  services  in  Minister  with  the  title  of  Viscount 
Mountcashel,  marched  towards  Lough  Erne  from  the  east  with 
three  regiments  of  foot,  two  regiments  of  dragoons,  and  some 
troops  of  cavalry.  A  considerable  force,  which  lay  encamped 
near  the  mouth  of  the  river  Drowes,  was  at  the  same  time  to 
advance  from  the  west.  The  Duke  of  Berwick  was  to  come 
from  the  north,  with  such  horse  and  dragoons  as  could  be  spared 
from  the  army  which  was  besieging  Londonderry.  The  Ennis- 
killeners were  not  fully  apprised  of  the  whole  plan  which  had 
been  laid  for  their  destruction  :  but  they  knew  that  Macarthy 
was  on  the  road  with  a  force  exceeding  any  which  they  could 
bring  into  the  field.  Their  anxiety  was  in  some  degree  relieved 
by  the  return  of  the  deputation  which  they  had  sent  to  Kirke. 
Kirke  could  spare  no  soldiers  :  but  he  had  sent  some  arms,  some 
ammunition,  and  some  experienced  officers,  of  whom  the  chief 
were  Colonel  Wolseley  and  Lieutenant  Colonel  Berry.  These 


WILLIAM   AXD    MART.  223 

officers  had  come  by  sea  round  the  coast  of  Donegal,  and  had 
run  up  the  Erne.  On  Sunday,  the  twenty-ninth  of  July,  it  was 
known  th:it  their  boat  was  approaching  the  island  of  Enniskillen. 
The  whole  population,  male  and  female,  came  to  the  shore  to 
greet  them.  It  was  with  difficulty  that  they  made  their  way  to 
the  Castle  through  the  crowds  which  hung  on  them,  blessing 
God  that  dear  old  England  had  not  quite  forgotten  the  English- 
men who  were  upholding  her  cause  against  great  odds  in  the 
heart  of  Ireland. 

Wolseley  seems  to  have  been  in  every  respect  well  qualified 
for  his  post.  He  was  a  stanch  Protestant,  had  distinguished 
himself  among  the  Yorkshiremen  who  rose  up  for  the  Prince  of 
Orange  and  a  free  Parliament,  and  had,  even  before  the  landing 
of  the  Dutch  army,  proved  his  zeal  for  liberty  and  pure  religion, 
by  causing  the  Mayor  of  Scarborough,  who  had  made  a  speech 
in  favour  of  King  James,  to  be  brought  into  the  marketplace 
and  well  tossed  there  in  a  blanket.*  This  vehement  hatred  of 
Popery  was,  in  the  estimation  of  the  men  of  Enniskillen,  the 
first  of  all  the  qualifications  of  a  leader  ;  and  Wolseley  had 
other  and  more  important  qualifications.  Though  himself  reg- 
ularly bred  to  war,  he  seems  to  have  had  a  peculiar  aptitude 
for  the  management  of  irregular  troops.  He  had  scarcely  taken 
on  himself  the  chief  command  when  he  received  notice  that 
Mountcashel  had  laid  siege  to  the  Castle  of  Crum.  Crum  was 
the  frontier  garrison  of  the  Protestants  of  P'ermanagh.  The 
ruins  of  the  old  fortifications  are  now  among  the  attractions  of 
a  beautiful  pleasureground,  situated  on  a  woody  promontory 
which  overlooks  Lough  Erne.  Wolseley  determined  to  raise  the 
siege.  He  sent  Berry  forward  with  such  troops  as  could  be 
instantly  put  in  motion,  and  promised  to  follow  speedily  with 
a  larger  force. 

Berry,  after  marching  some  miles,  encountered  thirteen  com- 
panies of  Macarthy's  dragoons,  commanded  by  Anthony,  the 
most  brilliant  and  accomplished  of  all  who  bore  the  name  of 
Hamilton,  but  much  less  successful  as  a  soldier  than  as  a  courtier, 

*  Bernartli's  Life  of  Himself,  1737.    Wolseley's  exploit  at   Scarborough  la 
mentioned  hi  orie  of  the  letters  published  by  Sir  Henry  Ellis 


224  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

a  lover,  and  a  writer.  Hamilton's  dragoons  ran  at  the  first 
fire  :  he  was  severely  wounded  ;  and  his  second  in  command  was 
shot  dead.  Macarthy  soon  came  up  to  support  Hamilton  ;  and 
at  the  same  time  Wolseley  came  up  to  support  Berry.  The 
hostile  armies  were  now  in  presence  of  each  other.  Macarthy 
had  above  five  thousand  men  and  several  pieces  of  artillery. 
The  Enniskilleners  were  under  three  thousand  ;  and  they  had 
marched  in  such  haste  that  they  had  brought  only  one  day's 
provisions.  It  was  therefore  absolutely  necessary  for  them 
either  to  fight  instantly  or  to  retreat.  Wolseley  determined 
to  consult  the  men  ;  and  this  determination,  which,  in  ordinary 
circumstances,  would  have  been  most  unworthy  of  a  general, 
was  fully  justified  by  the  peculiar  composition  and  temper  of 
the  little  army,  an  army  made  up  of  gentlemen  and  yeomen 
fighting,  not  for  pay,  but  for  their  lands,  their  wives,  their 
children,  and  their  God.  The  ranks  were  drawn  up  under  arms  ; 
and  the  question  was  put,  "  Advance  or  Retreat  ?."  The  answer 
was  an  universal  shout  of  "  Advance."  Wolseley  gave  out  the 
word  "  No  Popery."  It  was  received  with  loud  applause.  He 
instantly  made  his  dispositions  for  an  attack.  As  he  approached, 
the  enemy,  to  his  great  surprise,  began  to  retire.  The  Ennis- 
killeners were  eager  to  pursue  with  all  speed :  but  their  com- 
mander, suspecting  a  snare,  restrained  their  ardour  and  posi- 
tively forbade  them  to  break  their  ranks.  Thus  one  army 
retreated  and  the  other  followed,  in  good  order,  through  the 
little  town  of  Newton  Butler.  About  a  mile  from  that  town  the 
Irish  faced  about,  and  made  a  stand.  Their  position  was  well 
chosen.  They  were  drawn  up  on  a  hill  at  the  foot  of  which  lay  a 
deep  bog.  A  narrow  paved  causeway  which  ran  across  the  bog 
was  the  only  road  by  which  the  cavalry  of  the  Enniskilleners 
could  advance  ;  for  on  the  right  and  left  were  pools,  turf  pits 
and  quagmires,  which  afforded  no  footing  to  horses.  Macarthy 
placed  his  cannon  in  such_  a  manner  as  to  sweep  this  causeway. 
Wolseley  ordered  his  infantry  to  the  attack.  They  strug- 
gled through  the  bog,  made  their  way  to  firm  ground,  and  rushed 
on  the  guns.  There  was  then  a  short  and  desperate  fight. 
The  Irish  cannoneers  stood  gallantly  to  their  pieces  till  they 


WILLIAM    AND     MARY.       \  225 

were  cut  down  to  a  man.  The  Enniskillen  horse,  no  longer  in 
danger  of  being  mowed  down  by  the  fire  of  the  artillery,  came 
fast  up  the  causeway.  The  Irish  dragoons  who  had  run  away 
in  the  morning  were  smitten  with  another  panic,  and,  without 
striking  a  blow,  galloped  from  the  field.  The  horse  followed 
the  example.  Such  was  the  terror  of  the  fugitives  that  many  of 
them  spurred  hard  till  their  beasts  fell  down,  and  then  continued 
to  fiy  on  foot,  throwing  away  carbines,  swords,  and  even  coats, 
as  incumbrances.  The  infantry,  seeing  themselves  deserted, 
flung  down  their  pikes  and  muskets  and  ran  for  their  lives. 
The  conquerors  now  gave  loose  to  that  ferocity  which  has  seldom 
failed  to  disgrace  the  civil  wars  of  Ireland.  The  butchery  was 
terrible.  Near  fifteen  hundred  of  the  vanquished  were  put  to 
the  sword.  About  five  hundred  more,  in  ignorance  of  the  country, 
took  a  road  which  led  to  Lough  Erne.  The  lake  was  before 
them ;  the  enemy  behind :  they  plunged  into  the  waters  and 
perished  there.  Macarthy,  abandoned  by  his  troops,  rushed 
into  the  midst  of  the  pursuers,  and  very  nearly  found  the  death 
which  he  sought.  He  was  wounded  in  several  places :  he  was 
struck  to  the  ground ;  and  in  another  moment  his  brains  would 
have  been  knocked  out  with  the  butt  end  of  a  musket,  when 
he  was  recognised  and  saved.  The  colonists  lost  only  twenty 
men  killed  and  fifty  wounded.  They  took  four  hundred  pris- 
oners, seven  pieces  of  cannon,  fourteen  barrels  of  powder,  all 
the  drums  and  all  the  colours  of  the  vanquished  enemy.* 

The  battle  of  Newton  Butler  was  won  on  the  third  day  after 
the  boom  thrown  over  the  Foyle  was  broken.  At  Strabane  the 
news  met  the  Celtic  army  which  was  retreating  from  London- 

*  Hamilton's  True  Relation;  MacCormiek's  Further  Account ;  London  Gazette, 
Aug.  22,  1689  ;  Life  of  James,  ii.  368,  369  ;  Avaux  to  Lewis,  Aug.  4-14,  and  to 
Louvois  of  the  same  date.  Story  mentions  a  report  that  the  panic  among  the 
Irish  was  caused  by  the  mistake  of  an  officer  who  called  out  "  Eight  about  face  " 
instead  of  "  Right  face."  Neither  Avaux  nor  James  had  heard  anything  about 
this  mistake.  Indeed  the  dragoons  who  set  the  example  of  flight  were  not  in  the 
habit  of  waiting  for  orders  to  turn  their  backs  on  an  enemy.  They  had  run 
away  once  before  on  that  very  day.  Avaux  gives  a  very  simple  account  of  the 
defeat  :  "  Ces  mesmes  dragons  qui  avoient  fuy  le  matin  lesoherent  le  pied  avec 
tout  le  reste  de  la  cavalerie,  sans  tirer  nn  coup  de  pistolet  ;  etils  s'enfuirent 
tous  avec  une  telle  epouvante  qu'ils  jetterent  mousquetons,  pistolets,  et  espe'es  ; 
«t  la  plunart  d'eux,  ayant  creve  leurs  chevaux,  se  deshabillerent  pour  aller  plus 
viste  a  pied." 

Vol.  III.— 15 


226  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

derry.  All  was  terror  aud  confusion  :  the  tents  were  struck  : 
the  military  stores  were  flung  by  waggon  loads  into  the  waters 
of  the  Mourne  ;  and  the  dismayed  Irish,  leaving  many  sick  and 
wounded  to  the  mercy  of  the  victorious  Protestants,  fled  to 
Omagh,  and  thence  to  Charlemont.  Sarsfield,  who  commanded 
at  Sligo,  found  it  necessary  to  abandon  that  town,  which  was 
instantly  occupied  by  a  detachment  of  Kirke's  troops.*  Dublin 
was  in  consternation.  James  dropped  words  which  indicated  an 
intention  of  flying  to  the  Continent.  Evil  tidings  indeed  came 
fast  upon  him.  Almost  at  the  same  time  at  which  he  learned 
that  one  of  his  armies  had  raised  the  siege  of  Londonderry,  and 
that  another  had  been  routed  at  Newton  Butler,  he  received 
intelligence  scarcely  less  disheartening  from  Scotland. 

It  is  now  necessary  to  trace  the  progress  of  those  events  to 
which  Scotland  owes  her  political  and  her  religious  liberty,  her 
prosperity,  and  her  civilisation. 

<  Hamilton's  True  Relation, 


WILLIAM    AND    MAUY.  227 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE  violence  of  revolutions  is  generally  proportioned  to  the 
degree  of  the  maladministration  which  has  produced  them.  It 
is  therefore  not  strange  that  the  government  of  Scotland,  having 
been  during  many  years  far  more  oppressive  and  corrupt  than 
the  government  of  England,  should  have  fallen  with  a  far 
heavier  ruin.  The  movement  against  the  last  king  of  the 
House  of  Stuart  was  in  England  conservative,  in  Scotland  des- 
tructive. The  English  complained,  not  of  the  law,  but  of  the 
violation  of  the  law.  They  rose  up  against  the  first  magistrate 
merely  in  order  to  assert  the  supremacy  of  the  law.  They 
were  for  the  most  part  strongly  attached  to  the  Church  estab- 
lished by  law.  Even  in  applying  that  extraordinary  remedy  to 
which  an  extraordinary  emergency  compelled  them  to  have  re- 
course, they  deviated  as  little  as  possible  from  the  ordinary 
methods  prescribed  by  the  law.  The  Convention  which  met  at 
Westminster,  though  summoned  by  irregular  writs,  was  consti- 
tuted on  the  exact  model  of  a  regular  Great  Council  of  the 
Realm.  No  man  was  invited  to  the  Upper  House  whose  right 
to  sit  there  was  not  clear.  The  knights  and  burgesses  of  the 
Lower  House  were  chosen  by  those  electors  who  would  have 
been  entitled  to  send  members  to  a  Parliament  called  under  the 
great  seal.  The  franchises  of  the  forty  shilling  freeholder,  of 
the  householder  paying  scot  and  lot,  of  the  burgage  tenant,  of 
the  liveryman  of  London,  of  the  Master  of  Arts  of  Oxford, 
were  respected.  The  sense  of  the  constituent  bodies  was  taken 
with  as  little  violence  on  the  part  of  mobs,  with  as  little  trickery 
on  the  part  of  returning  officers,  as  at  any  general  election 
of  that  age.  When  at  length  the  Estates  met,  their  delibera- 
tions were  carried  on  with  perfect  freedom  and  in  strict  aQ« 


223  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

cordance  with  ancient  forms.  There  was  indeed,  after  the  first 
flight  of  James,  an  alarming  anarchy  in  London  and  in  some 
parts  of  the  country.  But  that  anarchy  nowhere  lasted  longer 
than  forty-eight  hours.  From  the  day  on  which  William 
reached  Saint  James's,  not  even  the  most  unpopular  agents  of 
the  fallen  government,  not  even  the  ministers  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  had  anything  to  fear  from  the  fury  of  the 
populace. 

In  Scotland  the  course  of  events  was  very  different.  There 
the  law  itself  was  a  grievance ;  and  James  had  perhaps  in- 
curred more  unpopularity  by  enforcing  it  than  by  violating  it. 
The  Church  established  by  law  was  the  most  odious  institution 
in  the  realm.  The  tribunals  had  pronounced  some  sentences  so 
flagitious,  the  Parliament  had  passed  some  Acts  so  oppressive, 
that,  unless  those  sentences  and  those  Acts  were  treated  as  nul- 
lities, it  would  be  impossible  to  bring  together  a  Convention 
commanding  the  public  respect  and  expressing  the  public  opin- 
ion. It  was  hardly  to  be  expected,  for  example,  that  the  Whigs, 
in  this  day  of  their  power,  would  endure  to  see  their  hereditary 
leader,  the  son  of  a  martyr,  the  grandson  of  a  martyr,  excluded 
from  the  Parliament  House  in  which  nine  of  his  ancestors  had 
sate  as  Earls  of  Argyle,  and  excluded  by  a  judgment  on  which 
the  whole  kingdom  cried  shame.  Still  less  was  it  to  be  expected 
that  they  would  suffer  the  election  of  members  for  counties  and 
towns  to  be  conducted  according  to  the  provisions  of  the  existing 
law.  For  under  the  existing  law  no  elector  could  vote  without 
swearing  that  he  renounced  the  Covenant,  and  that  he  acknowl- 
edged the  Royal  supremacy  in  matters  ecclesiastical.*  Such 
an  oath  no  rigid  Presbyterian  could  take.  If  such  an  oath  had 
been  exacted,  the  constituent  bodies  would  have  been  merely 
small  knots  of  prelatists :  the  business  of  devising  securities 
against  oppression  would  have  been  left  to  the  oppressors  ;  and 
the  great  party  which  had  been  most  active  in  effecting  the 
Revolution  would,  in  an  assembly  sprung  from  the  Revolution, 
have  had  not  a  single  representative.! 

*  Act.  Part.  Scot.,  Aug.  31,  1681. 

t  Balcarras's  Memoirs  ;  Short  History  of  the  Revolution  in  Scotland  in  a  lev 
t«r  from  a  Scotch  gentleman  in  Amsterdam  to  his  friend  in  London,  3712. 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  229 

William  saw  that  he  must  not  think  of  paying  to  the  laws 
of  Scotland  that  scrupulous  respect  which  he  had  wisely  and 
righteously  paid  to  the  laws  of  England.  It  was  absolutely 
necessary  that  he  should  determine  by  his  own  authority  how 
that  Convention  which  was  to  meet  at  Edinburgh  should  be 
chosen,  and  that  he  should  assume  the  power  of  annulling  some 
judgments  and  some  statutes.  He  accordingly  summoned  to 
the  Parliament  House  several  Lords  who  had  been  deprived  of 
their  honours  by  sentences  which  the  general  voice  loudly  con- 
demned as  unjust ;  and  he  took  on  himself  to  dispense  with  the 
Act  which  deprived  Presbyterians  of  the  elective  franchise. 

The  consequence  was  that  the  choice  of  almost  all  the  shires 
and  burghs  fell  on  Whig  candidates.  The  defeated  party  com- 
plained loudly  of  foul  play,  of  the  rudeness  of  the  populace, 
and  of  the  partiality  of  the  presiding  magistrates ;  and  these 
complaints  were  in  many  cases  well  founded.  It  is  not  under 
such  rulers  as  Lauderdule  and  Dundee  that  nations  learn  justice 
and  moderation.* 

Nor  was  it  only  at  the  elections  that  the  popular  feeling, 
so  long  and  so  severely  compressed,  exploded  with  violence. 
The  heads  and  the  hands  of  the  martyred  Whigs  were  taken 
down  from  the  gates  of  Edinburgh,  carried  in  procession  by 
great  multitudes  to  the  cemeteries,  and  laid  in  the  earth  with 
solemn  respect,  f  It  would  have  been  well  if  the  public  en- 
thusiasm had  manifested  itself  in  no  less  praiseworthy  form. 
Unhappily  throughout  a  large  part  of  Scotland  the  clergy  of 
the  Established  Church  were,  to  use  the  phrase  then  common, 
rabbled.  The  morning  of  Christmas  day  was  fixed  for  the 
commencement  of  these  outrages.  For  nothing  disgusted  the 
rigid  Covenanter  more  than  the  reverence  paid  by  the  pre- 
latist  to  the  ancient  holidays  of  the  Church.  That  such  rever- 
ence may  be  carried  to  an  absurd  extreme  is  true.  But  a 
philosopher  may  perhaps  be  inclined  to  think  the  opposite 
extreme  not  less  absurd,  and  may  ask  why  religion  should  re- 

*  Balcarras's  Memoirs  ;  Life  of  James,  ii.  341. 

1  A  Memorial  for  His  Highness  the  Prince  of  Orange  in  relation  to  the  Affair» 
of  Scotland,  by  two  Persons  of  Quality,  1689. 


230  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

ject  the  aid  of  associations  which  exist  in  every  nation  sufficient- 
ly civilised  to  have  a  calendar,  and  which  are  found  by  ex- 
perience to  have  a  powerful  and  often  a  salutary  effect.  The 
Puritan,  who  was,  in  general,  but  too  ready  to  follow  precedents 
and  analogies  drawn  from  the  history  and  jurisprudence  of  the 
Jews  might  have  found  in  the  Old  Testament  quite  as  clear 
warrant  for  keeping  festivals  in  honour  of  great  events  as  for 
assassinating  bishops  and  refusing  quarter  to  captives.  He 
certainly  did  not  learn  from  his  master,  Calvin,  to  hold  such 
festivals  in  abhorrence  ;  for  it  was  in  consequence  of  the  stren- 
uous exertions  of  Calvin  that  Christmas  was,  after  an  interval 
of  some  years,  again  observed  by  the  citizens  of  Geneva.*  But 
there  had  arisen  in  Scotland  Calvinists  who  were  to  Calvin 
what  Calvin  was  to  Laud.  To  these  austere  fanatics  a  holiday 
was  an  object  of  positive  disgust  and  hatred.  They  long  con- 
tinued in  their  solemn  manifestoes  to  reckon  it  among  the  sins 
which  would  one  day  bring  down  some  fearful  judgment  on  the 
land  that  the  Court  of  Session  took  a  vacation  in  the  last  week 
of  December,  f 

On  Christmas  day,  therefore,  the  Covenanters  held  armed 
musters  by  concert  in  many  parts  of  the  western  shires.  Each 
band  marched  to  the  nearest  manse,  and  sacked  the  cellar  and 
larder  of  the  minister  which  at  that  season  were  probably  bet- 
ter stocked  than  usual.  The  priest  of  Baal  was  reviled  and 
insulted,  sometimes  beaten,  sometimes  ducked.  His  furniture 
was  thrown  out  of  the  windows  ;  his  wife  and  children  turned 

*  See  Calvin's  letter  to  Haller,  iv.  Non.  Jan.  1551  :  "  Priusquam  ttrbem  un- 
quam  ingrederer,  nullse  prorsus  erant  ferise  prseter  diem  Dominicum.  Ex  quo 
sum  revocatua  hoc  temperamentum  quaesivi,  ut  Christ!  natalis  celebraretur." 

t  In  the  Act,  Declaration,  and  Testimony  of  the  Seceders,  dated  in  December 
1736,  it  is  said  that  countenance  is  given  by  authority  of  Parliament  to  the  obser- 
vation of  Holidays  in  Scotland,  by  the  vacation  of  our  most  considerable  Courts 
of  Justice  in  the  latter  end  of  December."  This  is  declared  to  be  a  national  sin, 
and  a  ground  of  the  Lord's  indignation.  In  March,  175S,  the  Associate  Synod 
addressed  a  Solemn  Warning  to  the  nation,  in  which  the  same  complaint  was 
repeated.  A  poor  crazy  creature,  whose  nonsense  has  been  thought  worthy  of 
being  reprinted  even  in  our  own  time,  says  :  "I  leave  my  testimony  against  the 
abominable  Act  of  the  pretended  Queen  Anne  and  her  pretended  British,  really 
Brutish  Parliament,  for  enacting  the  observance  of  that  which  is  called  the 
Yule  Vacance." — The  Dying  Testimony  of  William  Wilson,  sometime  School- 
master in  Park,  in  the  Parish  of  Douglas,  aged  65,  who  died  in  1757. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  231 

out  of  doors  in  the  snow.  He  was  then  carried  to  the  market- 
place, aud  exposed  during  some  time  as  a  malefactor.  His 
gown  was  torn  to  shreds  over  his  head  ;  if  he  had  a  prayer  book 
in  his  pocket  it  was  burned  ;  and  he  was  dismissed  with  a 
charge,  never,  as  he  valued  his  life,  to  officiate  in  the  parish 
again.  The  work  of  reformation  having  been  thus  completed, 
the  reformers  locked  up  the  church  and  departed  with  the  keys. 
In  fairness  to  these  men  it  must  be  owned  that  they  had  suffered 
such  oppression  as  may  excuse,  though  it  cannot  justify,  their 
violence  ;  and  that,  though  they  were  rude  even  to  brutality, 
they  do  not  appear  to  have  been  guilty  of  any  intentional  in- 
jury to  life  or  limb.* 

The  disorder  spread  fast.  In  Ayrshire,  Clydesdale,  Nithis- 
dale,  Annandale,  every  parish  was  visited  by  these  turbulent 
zealots.  About  two  hundred  curates, — so  the  episcopal  parish 
priests  were  called, — were  expelled.  The  graver  Covenanters, 
while  they  applauded  the  fervour  of  their  riotous  brethren, 
were  apprehensive  that  proceedings  so  irregular  might  give 
scandal,  and  learned,  with  especial  concern,  that  here  a  id  there 
an  Achan  had  disgraced  the  good  cause  by  stooping  to  plunder 
the  Canaanites  whom  he  ought  only  to  have  smitten.  A  gen- 
eral meeting  of  ministers  and  elders  was  called  for  the  purpose 
of  preventing  such  discreditable  excesses.  In  this  meeting  it  was 
determined  that,  for  the  future,  the  ejection  of  the  established 
clergy  should  be  performed  in  a  more  ceremonious  manner.  A 
form  of  notice  was  drawn  up  and  served  on  every  curate  in  the 
Western  Lowlands  who  had  not  yet  been  rabbled.  This  notice 
was  simply  a  threatening  letter,  commanding  him  to  quit  his 
parish  peaceably,  on  pain  of  being  turned  out  by  force. f 

The  Scottish  Bishops,  in  great  dismay,  sent  the  Dean  of 
Glasgow  to  plead  the  cause  of  their  persecuted  Church  at  West- 
minster. The  outrages  committed  by  the  Covenanters  were  in 
the  highest  degree  offensive  to  William,  who  had,  in  the  south 

*  An  Account  of  the  Present  Persecution  of  the  Church  in  Scotland,  in  several 
Letters,  1690 ;  The  Case  of  the  afflicted  Clergy  in  Scotland,  truly  represented, 
1690  Faithful  Contending  Displayed.  Burnet,  1.  805. 

The  form  of  notice  will  be  found  in  the  book  entitled  Faithful  Contending 
Displayed. 


232  HISTORY   OP   ENGLAND. 

of  the  island,  protected  even  Benedictines  and  Franciscans  from 
insult  and  spoliation.  But,  though  he  had  at  the  request  of  a 
large  number  of  the  noblemen  and  gentlemen  of  Scotland,  taken 
on  himself  provisionally  the  executive  administration  of  that 
kingdom,  the  means  of  maintaining  order  there  were  not  at  his 
command.  He  had  not  a  single  regiment  north  of  the  Tweed, 
or  indeed  within  many  miles  of  that  river.  It  was  vain  to  hope 
that  mere  words  would  quiet  a  nation  which  had  not,  in  any  age, 
been  very  amenable  to  control,  and  which  was  now  agitated  by 
hopes  and  resentments,  such  as  great  revolutions,  following 
great  oppressions,  naturally  engender.  A  proclamation  was  how- 
ever put  forth,  directing  that  all  people  should  lay  down  their 
arms,  and  that,  till  the  Convention  should  have  settled  the  gov- 
ernment, the  clergy  of  the  Established  Church  should  be  suf- 
fered to  reside  on  their  cures  without  molestation.  But  this 
proclamation,  not  being  supported  by  troops,  was  little  regarded. 
On  the  very  day  after  it  was  published  at  Glasgow,  the  venerable 
Cathedral  of  that  city,  almost  the  only  fine  church  of  the  mid- 
dle ages  which  stands  uninjured  in  Scotland,  was  attacked  by  a 
crowd  of  Presbyterians  from  the  meeting  houses,  with  whom 
were  mingled  many  of  their  fiercer  brethren  from  the  hills.  It 
was  a  Sunday  :  but  to  rabble  a  congregation  of  prelatists  was  held 
to  be  a  work  of  necessity  and  mercy.  The  worshippers  were 
dispersed,  beaten,  and  pelted  with  snowballs.  It  was  indeed 
asserted  that  some  wounds  were  inflicted  with  much  more 
formidable  weapons.* 

Edinburgh,  the  seat  of  government,  was  in  a  state  of  anar- 
chy. The  Castle,  which  commanded  the  whole  city,  was  still 
held  for  James  by  the  Duke  of  Gordon.  The  common  people 
were  generally  Whigs.  The  College  of  Justice,  a  great  forensic 
society  composed  of  judges,  advocates,  writers  to  the  signet,  and 
solicitors,  was  the  stronghold  of  Toryism  :  for  a  rigid  test  had 
during  some  years  excluded  Presbyterians  from  all  the  depart- 
ments of  the  legal  profession.  The  lawyers,some  hundreds  in  mim- 

*  Account  of  the  Present  Persecution,  1690  Case  of  the  afflicted  Clergy,  1690; 
A  true  Account  of  that  Interruption  that  was  made  of  the  Service  of  God  on  Sun- 
day last, 'being  the  17th  of  February,  1689,  signed  by  James  Gibson,  acting  for  th» 
Lord  Provost  of  Glasgow. 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  233 

her,  formed  themselves  into  a  battalion  of  infantry,  and  for  a  time 
effectually  kept  down  the  multitude.  They  paid,  however,  so 
much  respect  to  William's  authority  as  to  disband  themselves 
when  bis  proclamation  was  published.  But  the  example  of  obe- 
dience which  they  had  set  was  not  imitated.  Scarcely  had  they 
laid  down  their  weapons  when  Covenanters  from  the  west,  who 
had  done  all  that  was  to  be  done  in  the  way  of  pelting  and  hust- 
ling the  curates  of  their  own  neighbourhood,  came  dropping  into 
Edinburgh,  by  tens  and  twenties,  for  the  purpose  of  protecting, 
or,  if  need  should  be,  of  overawing  the  Convention.  Glasgow 
alone  sent  four  hundred  of  these  men.  It  could  hardly  be 
doubted  that  they  were  directed  by  some  leader  of  great  weight. 
They  showed  themselves  little  in  any  public  place  :  but  it 
was  known  that  every  cellar  was  filled  with  them  :  and  it  might 
well  be  apprehended  that,  at  the  first  signal,  they  would  pour 
forth  from  their  caverns,  and  appear  armed  around  the  Parlia- 
ment House.* 

It  might  have  been  expected  that  every  patriotic  and  en- 
lightened Scotchman  would  have  earnestly  desired  to  see  the 
agitation  appeased,  and  some  government  established  which 
might  be  able  to  protect  property  and  to  enforce  the  law.  An 
imperfect  settlement  which  could  be  speedily  made  might  well 
appear  to  such  a  man  preferable  to  a  perfect  settlement  which 
must  be  the  work  of  time.  Just  at  this  moment,  however,  a 
party,  strong  both  in  numbers  and  in  abilities,  raised  a  new  and 
most  important  question,  which  seemed  not  unlikely  to  prolong 
the  interregnum  till  the  autumn.  This  party  maintained  that 
the  Estates  ought  not  immediately  to  declare  William  and 
Mary  King  and  Queen,  but  to  propose  to  England  a  treaty  of 
union,  and  to  keep  the  throne  vacant  till  such  a  treaty  should  be 
concluded  on  terms  advantageous  to  Scotland,  f 

It  may  seem  strange  that  a  large  portion  of  a  people,  whose 
patriotism,  exhibited,  often  in  a  heroic,  and  sometimes  in  a  comic 
form,  has  long  been  proverbial,  should  have  been  willing,  nay 
impatient,  to  surrender  an  independence  which  had  been,  through 
many  ages,  dearly  prized  and  manfully  defended.  The  truth 
*  Balcarras's  Memoirs  ;  Mackay's  Memoirs.  t  Burnet,  ii.  2L 


234  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

is  that  the  stubborn  spirit  which  the  arms  of  the  Plantagenets 
and  Tudors  had  been  unable  to  subdue  had  begun  to  yield  to  a 
very  different  kind  of  force.  Customhouses  and  tariffs  were 
rapidly  doing  what  the  carnage  of  Falkirk  and  Halidon,  of 
Flodden  and  Pinkie,  had  failed. to  do.  Scotland  had  some  ex- 
perience of  the  effects  of  an  union.  She  had,  near  forty  years 
before,  been  united  to  England  on  such  terms  as  England, 
flushed  with  conquest,  chose  to  dictate.  That  union  was  in- 
separably associated  in  the  minds  of  the  vanquished  people 
with  defeat  and  humiliation.  And  yet  even  that  union,  cruelly 
as  it  had  wounded  the  pride  of  the  Scots,  had  promoted  their 
prosperity.  Cromwell,  with  wisdom  and  liberality  rare  in  his 
age,  had  established  the  most  complete  freedom  of  trade  between 
the  dominant  and  the  subject  country.  While  he  governed,  no 
prohibition,  no  duty,  impeded  the  transit  of  commodities  from 
any  part  of  the  island  to  any  other.  His  navigation  laws  im- 
posed no  restraint  on  the  trade  of  Scotland.  A  Scotch  vessel 
was  at  liberty  to  carry  a  Scotch  cargo  to  Barbadoes,  and  to 
bring  the  sugars  of  Barbadoes  into  the  port  of  London.*  The 
rule  of  the  Protector  therefore  had  been  propitious  to  the 
industry  and  to  the  physical  wellbeing  of  the  Scottish  people. 
Hating  him  and  cursing  him,  they  could  not  help  thriving  under 
him,  and  often,  during  the  administration  of  their  legitimate 
princes,  looked  back  with  regret  to  the  golden  days  of  the 
usurper.! 

*  Scobell,  1654,  cap.  9 ;  and  Oliver's  Ordinance  in  Council  of  the  12th  of  April 
in  the  same  year. 

t  Burnet  and  Fletcher  of  Saltoun  mention  the  prosperity  of  Scotland  under 
the  Protector,  but  ascribe  it  to  a  cause  quite  inadequate  to  the  production  of 
such  an  effect.  "  There  \vas,"  says  Burnet,  "  a  considerable  force  of  about  seven 
or  eight  thousand  men  kept  in  Scotland.  The  pay  of  the  army  brought  so  much 
money  into  the  kingdom  that  it  continued  all  that  while  in  a  very  flourishing 

state We  always  reckon  those  eight  years  of  usurpation  a  time  of 

groat  peace,  and  prosperity."  "  During  the  time  of  the  usurper  Cromwell,"  says 
Fletcher,  "  we  imagined  ourselves  to  be  in  a  tolerable  condition  with  respect  to 
the  last  particular  (trade  and  money)  by  reason  of  that  expense  which  was  made 
in  the  realm  by  those  forces  that  kept  us  in  subjection."  The  true  explanation 
of  the  phenomena  about  which  Burnet  and  Fletcher  blundered  so  grossly  will  be 
found  in  a  pamphlet  entitled,  "  Some  seasonable  and  modest  Thoughts  partly 
occasioned  by  and  partly  concerning  the  Scotch  East  India  Company,"  Edin- 
ourgh,  1696.  See  the  proceedings  of  the  "Wednesday  Club  in  Friday  Street  upon 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  235 

The  Restoration  came,  and  changed  everything.  The  Scots 
regained  their  independence,  and  soon  began  to  find  that  inde- 
pendence had  its  discomfort  as  well  as  its  dignity.  The  English 
Parliament  treated  them  as  aliens  and  as  rivals.  A  new  Navi- 
gation Act  put  them  on  almost  the  same  footing  with  the  Dutch. 
High  duties,  and  in  some  case  prohibitory  duties,  were  imposed 
on  the  products  of  Scottish  industry.  It  is  not  wonderful  that 
a  nation  eminently  industrious,  shrewd,  and  enterprising,  a 
nation  which,  having  been  long  kept  back  by  a  sterile  soil  and 
a  severe  climate,  was  just  beginning  to  prosper  in  spite  of 
these  disadvantages,  and  which  found  its  progress  suddenly 
stopped,  should  think  itself  cruelly  treated,  Yet  there  was  no 
help.  Complaint  was  vain.  Retaliation  was  impossible.  The 
Sovereign,  even  if  he  had  the  wish,  had  not  the  power,  to  bear 
himself  evenly  between  his  large  and  his  small  kingdom,  between 
the  kingdom  from  which  he  drew  an  annual  revenue  of  a  million 
and  a  half  and  the  kingdom  from  which  he  drew  an  annual 
revenue  of  little  more  than  sixty  thousand  pounds.  He  dared 
neither  to  refuse  his  assent  to  any  English  law  injurious  to  the 
trade  of  Scotland,  nor  to  give  his  assent  to  any  Scotch  law  inju- 
rious to  the  trade  of  England. 

The  complaints  of  the  Scotch,  however,  were  so  loud  that 
Charles,  in  1GG7,  appointed  Commissioners  to  arrange  the 
terms  of  a  commercial  treaty  between  the  two  British  kingdoms. 
The  conferences  were  soon  broken  off;  and  all  that  passed 
while  they  continued  proved  that  there  was  only  one  way  in 
which  Scotland  could  obtain  a  share  of  the  commercial  prosperity 
which  England  at  that  time  enjoyed.*  The  Scotch  must  be- 
come one  people  with  the  English.  The  parliament  which  had 
hitherto  sate  at  Edinburgh  must  be  incorporated  with  the  Par- 
liament which  sate  at  Westminster.  The  sacrifice  could  not 
but  be  painfully  felt  by  a  brave  and  haughty  people,  who  had, 
during  twelve  generations,  regarded  the  southern  domination 

the  subject  of  an  Union  with,  Scotland,  December  1705.    See  also  the  seventh 
Chapter  of  Mr.  Burton's  valuable  History  of  Scotland. 

*  See  the  paper  in  which  the  demands  of  the  Scotch  Commissioners  are  set 
forth.    It  will  be  found  in  the  Appendix  to  De  Foe's  History  of  the  Union,  No  13. 


2oG  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

with  deadly  aversion,  and  whose  hearts  still  swelled  at  the 
thought  of  the  death  of  Wallace  and  of  the  triumphs  of  Bruce. 
There  were  doubtless  many  punctilious  patriots  who  would 
have  strenuously  opposed  an  union  even  if  they  could  have 
foreseen  that  the  effect  of  an  union  would  be  to  make  Glasgow 
a  greater  city  than  Amsterdam,  and  to  cover  the  dreary  Lo- 
thians  with  harvests  and  woods,  neat  farmhouses  and  stately 
mansions.  But  there  was  also  a  large  class  which  was  not  dis- 
posed to  throw  away  great  and  substantial  advantages  in  order 
to  preserve  mere  names  and  ceremonies  ;  and  the  influence  of 
this  class  was  such  that,  in  the  year  1G70,  the  Scotch  Parlia- 
ment made  direct  overtures  to  England.*  The  King  uudei  took 
the  office  of  mediator ;  and  negotiators  were  named  on  both 
sides ;  but  nothing  was  concluded. 

The  question,  having  slept  during  eighteen  years,  was  sud- 
denly revived  by  the  Revolution.  Different  classes,  impelled  by 
different  motives,  concurred  on  this  poi::t.  With  merchants, 
eager  to  share  m  the  advantages  of  the  West  Indian  Trade, 
were  joined  active  and  aspiring  politicians  who  wished  to  exhibit 
their  abilities  in  a  more  conspicuous  theatre  than  the  Scottish 
Parliament  House,  and  to  collect  riches  from  a  more  copious 
source  than  the  Scottish  treasury.  Tbe  cry  for  union  was 
swelled  by  the  voices  of  some  artful  Jacobites,  who  merely 
wished  to  cause  discord  and  delay,  and  who  hoped  to  attain  this 
end  by  mixing  up  with  the  difficult  question  which  it  was  the 
especial  business  of  the  Convention  to  settle  another  question 
more  difficult  still.  It  is  probable  that  some  who  disliked  the 
ascetic  habits  and  rigid  discipline  of  the  Presbyterians  wished 
for  an  union  as  the  only  mode  of  maintaining  prelacy  in  the 
northern  part  of  the  island.  In  an  united  Parliament  the  Eng- 
lish members  must  greatly  preponderate  ;  and  in  England  the 
Bishops  were  held  in  high  honour  by  the  great  majority  of  the 
population.  The  Episcopal  Church  of  Scotland,  it  was  plain, 
rested  on  a  narrow  basis,  and  would  fall  before  the  first  attack. 
The  Episcopal  Church  of  Great  Britain  might  have  a  founda- 
tion broad  and  solid  enough  to  withstand  all  assaults, 

«  Act.  Parl.  Scot.,  July  30,  1670. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  237 

Whether,  in  1689,  it  would  have  been  possible  to  effect  a 
civil  union  without  a  religious  union  may  well  be  doubted.  But 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  a  religious  union  would  have  been 
one  of  the  greatest  calamities  that  could  have  befallen  either 
kingdom.  The  union  accomplished  in  1707  has  indeed  been  a 
great  blessing  both  to  England  and  to  Scotland.  But  it  has 
been  a  blessing  because,  in  constituting  one  State,  it  left  two 
churches.  The  political  interest  of  the  contracting  parties  was 
the  same  :  but  the  ecclesiastical  dispute  between  them  was  one 
which  admitted  of  no  compromise.  They  could  therefore  pre- 
serve harmony  only  by  agreeing  to  differ.  Had  there  been  an 
amalgamation  of  the  hierarchies,  there  never  would  have  been 
an  amalgamation  of  the  nations.  Successive  Mitchells  would 
have  fired  at  successive  Sharpes.  Five  generations  of  Claver- 
houses  would  have  butchered  five  generations  of  Camerons. 
Those  marvellous  improvements  which  have  changed  the  face 
of  Scotland  would  never  have  been  effected.  Plains  now  rich 
with  harvests  would  have  remained  barren  moors.  Waterfalls 
which  now  turn  the  wheels  of  immense  factories  would  have 
resounded  in  a  wilderness.  New  Lanark  would  still  have  been 
a  sheepwalk,  and  Greenock  a  fishing  hamlet.  What  little 
strength  Scotland  could,  under  such  a  system,  have  possessed 
must,  in  an  'estimate  of  the  resources  of  Great  Britain,  have 
been,  not  added,  but  deducted.  So  encumbered,  our  country 
never  could  have  held,  either  in  peace  or  in  war,  a  place  in  the 
first  rank  of  nations.  We  are  unfortunately  not  without  the 
means  of  judging  of  the  effect  which  may  be  produced  on  the 
moral  and  physical  state  of  a  people  by  establishing,  in  the 
exclusive  enjoyment  of  riches  and  dignity,  a  Church  loved  and 
reverenced  only  by  the  few,  and  regarded  by  the  many  with 
religious  and  national  aversion.  One  such  Church  is  quite 
burden  enough  for  the  energies  of  one  empire. 

But  these  things,  which  to  us,  who  have  been  taught  by  a 
bitter  experience,  seem  clear,  were  by  no  means  clear  in  1689, 
even  to  very  tolerant  and  enlightened  politicians.  In  truth  the 
English  Low  Churchmen  were,  if  possible,  more  anxious  than 
the  English  High  Churchmen  to  preserve  Episcopacy  in  Scot- 


238  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

land.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  Burnet,  who  was  always 
accused  of  wishing  to  establish  the  Calvinistic  discipline  in  the 
south  of  the  island,  incurred  great  unpopularity  among  his  OWK 
countrymen  by  his  efforts  to  uphold  prelacy  in  the  north.  He 
was  doubtless  in  error :  but  his  error  is  to  be  attributed  to  a 
cause  which  does  him  no  discredit.  His  favourite  object,  an 
object  unattainable  indeed,  yet  such  as  might  well  fascinate  a 
large  intellect  and  a  benevolent  heart,  had  long  been  an  honour- 
able treaty  between  the  Anglican  Church  and  the  Nonconfor- 
mists. He  thought  it  most  unfortunate  that  one  opportunity  of 
concluding  such  a  treaty  should  have  been  lost  at  the  time  of 
the  Restoration.  It  seemed  to  him  that  another  opportunity 
was  afforded  by  the  Revolution.  He  and  his  friends  were 
eagerly  pushing  forward  Nottingham's  Comprehension  Bill,  and 
were  flattering  themselves  with  vain  hopes  of  success.  But 
they  felt  that  there  could  hardly  be  a  Comprehension  in  one  of 
the  two  British  kingdoms,  unless  there  were  also  a  Comprehen- 
sion in  the  other.  Concession  must  be  purchased  by  concession. 
If  the  Presbyterian  pertinaciously  refused  to  listen  to  any  terms 
of  compromise  where  he  was  strong,  it  would  be  almost  impossi- 
ble to  obtain  for  him  liberal  terms  of  compromise  where  he  was 
weak.  Bishops  must  therefore  be  allowed  to  keep  their  sees  in 
Scotland,  in  order  that  divines  not  ordained  by  Bishops  might 
be  allowed  to  hold  rectories  and  canonries  in  England. 

Thus  the  cause  of  the  Episcopalians  in  the  north  and  the 
cause  of  the  Presbyterians  in  the  south  were  bound  up  together 
in  a  manner  which  might  well  perplex  even  a  skilful  statesman. 
It  was  happy  for  our  country  that  the  momentous  question 
which  excited  so  many  strong  passions,  and  which  presented 
itself  in  so  many  different  points  of  views,  was  to  be  decided  by 
such  a  man  as  William.  He  listened  to  Episcopalians,  to 
Latitudinarians,  to  Presbyterians  to  the  Dean  of  Glasgow  who 
pleaded  for  the  apostolic  succession,  to  Burnet  who  represented 
the  danger  of  alienating  the  Anglican  clergy,  to  Carstairs  who 
hated  prelacy  with  the  hatred  of  a  man  whose  thumbs  were 
deeply  marked  by  the  screws  of  prelatists.  Surrounded  by  these 
eager  advocates,  William  remained  calm  and  impartial.  He 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  239 

was  indeed  eminently  qualified  by  his  situation  as  well  as  by  his 
personal  qualities  to  be  the  umpire  in  that  great  contention. 
lie  was  the  King  of  a  prelatical  kingdom.  He  was  the  Prime 
Minister  of  a  Presbyterian  republic.  His  unwillingness  to 
offend  the  Anglican  Church  of  which  he  was  the  head,  and  his 
unwillingness  to  offend  the* reformed  Churches  of  the  Continent 

O 

which  regarded  him  as  a  champion  divinely  sent  to  protect  them 
against  the  French  tyranny,  balanced  each  other,  and  kept  him 
from  leaning  unduly  to  either  side.  His  conscience  was  per- 
fectly neutral.  For  it  was  his  deliberate  opinion  that  nofcform 
of  ecclesiastical  polity  was  of  divine  institution.  He  dissented 
equally  from  the  school  of  Laud  and  from  the  school  of  Cameron, 
from  the  men  who  held  there  could  not  be  a  Christian  Church 
without  Bishops,  and  from  the  men  who  held  that  there  could 
not  be  a  Christian  Church  without  synods.  Which  form  of 
government  should  be  adopted  was  in  his  judgment  a  question 
of  mere  expediency.  He  would  probably  have  preferred  a 
temper  between  the  two  rival  systems,  a  hierarchy  in  which  the 
chief  spiritual  functionaries  should  have  been  something  more 
than  moderators  and  something  less  than  prelates.  But  he  was 
far  too  wise  a  man  to  think  of  settling  such  a  matter  according 
to  his  own  personal  tastes.  He  determined  therefore  that,  if 
there  was  on  both  sides  a  disposition  to  compromise,  he  would 
act  as  mediator.  But,  if  it  should  appear  that  the  public  mind 
of  England  and  the  public  mind  of  Scotland  had  taken  the  ply 
strongly  in  opposite  directions,  he  would  not  attempt  to  force 
either  nation  into  conformity  with  the  opinion  of  the  other.  He 
would  suffer  each  to  have  its  own  church,  and  would  content 
himself  with  restraining  both  churches  from  persecuting  non- 
conformists, and  from  encroaching  on  the  functions  of  the  civil 
magistrate. 

The  language  which  he  held  to  those  Scottish  Episcopalians 
who  complained  to  him  of  their  sufferings  and  implored  his 
protection  was  well  weighed  and  well  guarded,  but  clear  and 
ingenuous.  He  wished,  he  said,  to  preserve,  if  possible,  the 
institution  to  which  they  were  so  much  attached,  and  to  grant, 
at  the  same  time,  entire  liberty  of  conscience  to  that  party 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

which  could  not  be  reconciled  to  any  deviation  from  the  Pres- 
byterian model.  But  the  Bishops  must  take  care  that  they  did 
not,  by  their  own  rashness  and  obstinacy,  put  it  out  of  his  power 
to  be  of  any  use  to  them.  They  must  also  distinctly  understand 
that  he  was  resolved  not  to  force  on  Scotland  by  the  sword  a 
form  of  ecclesiastical  government  which  she  detested.  If,  there- 
fore, it  should  be  found  that  prelacy  could  be  maintained  only 
by  arms,  he  should  yield  to  the  general  sentiment,  and  should 
merely  do  his  best  to  obtain  for  the  Episcopalian  minority  per- 
mission to  worship  God  in  freedom  and  safety.* 

It  is  not  likely  that,  even  if  the  Scottish  Bishops  had,  as 
William  recommended,  done  all  that  meekness  and  prudence 
could  do  to  conciliate  their  countrymen,  episcopacy  could,  under 
any  modification,  have  been  maintained.  It  was  indeed  asserted 
by  writers  of  that  generation,  and  has  been  repeated  by  writers 
of  our  generation,  that  the  Presbyterians  were  not,  before  the 
Revolution,  the  majority  of  the  people  of  Scotland.!  But  in 
this  assertion  there  is  an  obvious  fallacy.  The  effective  strength 
of  sects  is  not  to  be  ascertained  merely  by  counting  heads.  An 
established  church,  a  dominant  church,  a  church  which  has  the 
exclusive  possession  of  civil  honours  and  emoluments,  will 
always  rank  among  its  nominal  members  multitudes  who  have 
no  religion  at  all  ;  multitudes  who,  though  not  destitute  of 
religion,  attend  little  to  theological  disputes,  and  have  no  scruple 
about  conforming  to  the  mode  of  worship  which  happens  to  be 
established;  and  multitudes  who  have  scruples  about  conforming, 
but  whose  scruples  have  yielded  to  worldly  motives.  On  the 
other  hand,  every  member  of  an  oppressed  church  is  a  man  who 
has  a  very  decided  preference  for  that  church.  Every  person 
who,  in  the  time  of  Diocletian,  joined  in  celebrating  the  Chris- 
tian mysteries  might  reasonably  be  supposed  to  be  a  firm  believer 
in  Christ.  But  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  one  single 

*  Burnet,  ii.  23. 

t  See,  for  example,  a  pamphlet  entitled  "  Some  questions  resolved  concerning 
episcopal  and  presbyterian  government  in  Scotland,  1690."  One  of  the  questions 
is,  whether  Scottish  presbytery  be  agreeable  to  the  general  inclinations  of  that 
ceople.  The  author  answers  the  question  in  the  negative,  on  tho  ground  that 
the  upper  and  middle  classes  had  generally  conformed  to  the  episcopal  Church 
before  the  Involution. 


WILLIAM    AXD    MART.  241 

Pontiff  or  Augur  in  the  Roman  Senate  was  a  firm  believer  in 
Jupiter.  In  Mary's  reign,  everybody  who  attended  the  secret 
meetings  of  the  Protestants  was  a  real  Protestant :  but  hundreds 
of  thousands  went  to  mass  who,  as  appeared  before  she  had  been 
dead  a  month,  were  not  real  Roman  Catholics.  If,  under  the 
Kings  of  the  House  of  Stuart,  when  a  Presbyterian  was  excluded 
from  political  power  and  from  the  learned  professions,  was 
daily  annoyed  by  informers,  by  tyrannical  magistrates,  by  licen- 
tious dragoons,  and  was  in  danger  of  being  hanged  if  he  heard 
a  sermon  in  the  open  air,  the  population  of  Scotland  was  not 
very  unequally  divided  between  Episcopalians  and  Presbyteri- 
ans, the  rational  inference  is  that  more  than  nineteen  twentieths 
of  those  Scotchmen  whose  conscience  was  interested  in  the 
matter  were  Presbyterians,  and  that  the  Scotchmen,  who  were 
decidedly  and  on  conviction  Episcopalians,  were  a  small  minori- 
ty. Against  such  odds  the  Bishops  had  but  little  chance  ;  and 
whatever  chance  they  had  they  made  haste  to  thjrow  away ; 
some  of  them  because  they  sincerely  believed  that  their  allegi- 
ance was  still  due  to  James  ;  others  probably  because  they 
apprehended  that  William  would  not  have  the  power,  even  if  he 
had  the  will,  to  serve  them,  and  that  nothing  but  a  counterrevo- 
lution in  the  State  could  avert  a  revolution  in  the  Church. 

As  the  new  King  of  England  could  not  be  at  Edinburgh 
during  the  sitting  of  the  Scottish  Convention,  a  letter  Irom  him 
to  the  Estates  was  prepared  with  great  skill.  In  this  document 
he  professed  warm  attachment  to  the  Protestant  religion,  but 
gave  no  opinion  touching  those  questions  about  which  Protes- 
tants were  divided.  He  had  observed,  he  said,  with  great  satis- 
faction that  many  of  the  Scottish  nobility  and  gentry  with  whom 
he  had  conferred  in  London  were  inclined  to  an  union  of  the 
two  British  kingdoms.  He  was  sensible  how  much  such  an 
union  would  conduce  to  the  happiness  of  both ;  and  he  would 
do  all  in  his  power  towards  the  accomplishing  of  so  good  a  work. 

It  was  necessary  that  he  should  allow  a  large  discretion  to 

his  confidential  agents  at  Edinburgh.     The  private  instructions 

with  which  he  furnished  those  persons  could  not  be  minute,  but 

were  highly  judicious.     lie  charged  them  to  ascertain  to  the 

VOL.  III.— 16 


242  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

best  of  their  power  the  real  sense  of  the  Convention,  and  to  be 
guided  by  it.  They  must  remember  that  the  first  object  was 
to  settle  the  government.  To  that  object  every  other  object, 
even  the  union,  must  be  postponed.  A  treaty  between  two  in- 
dependent legislatures,  distant  from  each  other  several  days' 
journey,  must  necessarily  be  a  work  of  time ;  and  the  throne 
could  not  safely  remain  vacant  while  the  negotiations  were 
pending.  It  was  therefore  important  that  His  Majesty's  agents 
should  be  on  their  guard  against  the  arts  of  persons  who,  under 
pretence  of  promoting  the  union,  might  really  be  contriving 
only  to  prolong  the  interregnum.  If  the  Convention  should  be 
bent  on  establishing  the  Presbyterian  form  of  church  govern- 
ment, William  desired  that  his  friends  would  do  all  in  their 
power  to  prevent  the  triumphant  sect  from  retaliating  what  it 
had  suffered.* 

The  person  by  whose  advice  William  appears  to  have  been 
at  this  time  chiefly  guided  as  to  Scotch  politics  was  a  Scotchman 
of  great  abilities  and  attainments,  Sir  James  Dalrymple  of  Stair, 
the  founder  of  a  family  eminently  distinguished  at  the  bar,  on 
the  bench,  in  the  senate,  in  diplomacy,  in  arms,  and  in  letters,  but 
distinguished  also  by  misfortunes  and  misdeeds  which  have  fur- 
nished poets  and  novelists  with  materials  for  the  darkest  and 
most  heartrending  tales.  Already  Sir  James  had  been  in  mourn- 
ing for  more  than  one  strange  and  terrible  death.  One  of  his  sons 
had  died  by  poison.  One  of  his  daughters  had  poniarded  her  bride- 
groom on  the  wedding  night.  One  of  his  grandsons  had  in  boy- 
ish sport  been  slain  by  another.  Savage  libellers  asserted,  and 
some  of  the  superstitious  vulgar  believed,  that  calamities  so  por- 
tentous were  the  consequences  of  some  connection  between  the 
unhappy  race  and  the  powers  of  darkness.  Sir  James  had  a  wry 
neck  ;  and  he  was  reproached  with  this  misfortune  as  if  it  had 
been  a  crime,  and  was  told  that  it  marked  him  out  as  a  man 
doomed  to  the  gallows.  His  wife,  a  woman  of  great  ability, 

*  The  instructions  are  in  the  Leven  and  Melville  Papers.  They  bear  date 
March  7,  1688-9.  On  the  first  occasion  on  which  I  quote  this  most  valuable  col- 
lection, I  cannot  refrain  from  acknowledging  the  obligations  under  which  I,  and 
all  who  take  an  interest  in  the  history  of  our  island,  lie  to  the  gentleman  who  haa 
performed  so  well  the  duty  of  an  editor. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  243 

art,  and  spirit,  was  popularly  nicknamed  the  "Witch  of  Eridor. 
It  was  gravely  said  that  she  had  cast  fearful  spells  on  those  whom 
she  hated,  and  that  she  had  been  seen  in  the  likeness  of  a  cat 
seated  on  the  cloth  of  state  by  the  side  of  the  Lord  High  Com- 
missioner. The  man,  however,  over  whose  roof  so  many  curses 
appeared  to  hang,  did  not,  as  far  as  we  can  now  judge,  fall  short 
of  that  very  low  standard  of  morality  which  was  generally 
attained  by  politicians  of  his  age  and  nation.  In  force  of  mind 
and  extent  of  knowledge  he  was  superior  to  them  all.  In  his 
youth  he  had  borne  arms :  he  had  then  been  a  professor  of 
philosophy :  he  had  then  studied  law,  and  had  become,  by 
general  acknowledgment,  the  greatest  jurist  that  his  country  had 
produced.  In  the  days  of  the  Protectorate,  he  had  been  a  judge. 
After  the  Restoration,  he  had  made  his  peace  with  the  royal 
family,  had  sate  in  the  Privy  Council,  and  had  presided  with 
unrivalled  ability  in  the  Court  of  Session.  He  had  doubtless 
borne  a  share  in  many  unjustifiable  acts  ;  but  there  were  limits 
which  he  never  passed.  He  had  a  wonderful  power  of  giving 
to  any  proposition  which  it  suited  him  to  maintain  a  plausible 
aspect  of  legality  and  even  of  justice ;  and  this  power  he  fre- 
quently abused.  But  he  was  not,  like  many  of  those  among 
whom  he  lived,  impudently  and  unscrupulously  servile.  Shame 
and  conscience  generally  restrained  him  from  committing  any 
bad  action  for  which  his  rare  ingenuity  could  not  frame  a  spe- 
cious defence ;  and  he  was  seldom  in  his  place  at  the  council 
boards  when  anything  outrageously  unjust  or  cruel  was  to  be 
done.  His  moderation  at  length  gave  offence  to  the  Court.  He 
was  deprived  of  his  high  office,  and  found  himself  in  so  disagree- 
able a  situation  that  he  retired  to  Holland.  There  he  employed 
himself  in  correcting  the  great  work  on  jurisprudence  which  has 
preserved  his  memory  fresh  down  to  our  own  time.  In  his  banish- 
ment he  tried  to  gain  the  favour  of  his  fellow  exiles,  who 
naturally  regarded  him  with  suspicion.  He  protested,  and  per- 
haps with  truth,  that  his  hands  were  pure  from  the  blood  of  the 
persecuted  Covenanters.  He  made  a  high  profession  of  religion, 
prayed  much,  and  observed  weekly  days  of  fasting  and  humilia- 
tion. He  even  consented,  after  much  hesitation,  to  assist  with 


244  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

his  advice  and  his  credit  the  unfortunate  enterprise  of  Argyle. 
When  that  enterprise  had  failed,  a  prosecution  was  instituted  at 
Edinburgh  against  Dalrymple  ;  and  his  estates  would  doubtless 
have  been  confiscated,  had  they  not  been  saved  by  an  artifice 
which  subsequently  became  common  among  the  politicians  of 
Scotland.  His  eldest  son  and  heir  apparent,  John,  took  the  side 
of  the  government,  supported  the  dispensing  power,  declared 
against  the  Test,  and  accepted  the  place  of  Lord  Advocate,  when 
Sir  George  Mackenzie,  after  holding  out  through  ten  years  of 
foul  drudgery,  at  length  showed  signs  of  flagging.  The  services 
of  the  younger  Dalrymple  were  rewarded  by  a  remission  of  the 
forfeiture  which  the  offences  of  the  elder  had  incurred.  Those 
services  indeed  were  not  to  be  despised.  For  Sir  John,  though 
inferior  to  his  father  in  depth  and  extent  of  legal  learning,  was 
no  common  man.  His  knowledge  was  great  and  various :  his 
parts  were  quick ;  and  his  eloquence  was  singularly  ready  and 
graceful.  To  sanctity  he  made  no  pretensions.  Indeed  Epis- 
copalians and  Presbyterians  agreed  in  regarding  him  as  little 
better  than  an  atheist.  During  some  months  Sir  John  at  Edin- 
burgh affected  to  condemn  the  disloyalty  of  his  unhappy  parent 
Sir  James ;  and  Sir  James  at  Leyden  told  his  Puritan  friends 
how  deeply  he  lamented  the  wicked  compliances  of  his  unhappy 
child  Sir  John. 

The  Revolution  came,  and  brought  a  large  increase  of  wealth 
and  honours  to  the  House  of  Stair.  The  son  promptly  changed 
sides,  and  cooperated  ably  and  zealously  with  the  father.  Sir 
James  established  himself  in  London1  for  the  purpose  of  giving 
advice  to  William  on  Scotch  affairs.  Sir  John's  post  was  in  the 
Parliament  House  at  Edinburgh.  He  was  not  likely  to  find  any 
equal  among  the  debaters  there,  and  was  prepared  to  exert  all 
his  powers  against  the  dynasty  which  he  had  lately  served.* 

*  As  to  the  Dalrymples,  see  the  Lord  President's  own  writings,  and  among 
them  his  Vindication  of  the  Divine  Perfections  ;  Wodrow's  Analecta  ;  Douglas's 
Peerage  ;  Lockharl's  Memoirs  ;  the  Satyre  on  the  F;vmilie  of  Stairs  ;  the  Satyric 
lines  upon  the  long  wished  for  and  timely  Death  of  the  Eight  Honourable  Lady 
Stairs  :  Law's  Memorials ;  and  the  Hyndford  Papers,  written  in  1701-5  and 
printed  with  the  Letters  of  Carstairs.  Lockhart,  though  a  mortal  enemy  of  John 
Dalrymple,  says,  "  There  was  none  in  the  parliament  capable  to  take  up  the 
cudgels  with  him." 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  245 

By  the  large  party  which  was  zealous  for  the  Calvinistic 
church  government  John  Dalrymple  was  regarded  with  incurable 
distrust  and  dislike.  It  was  therefore  necessary  that  another 
agent  should  be  employed  to  manage  that  party.  Such  an  agent 
was  George  Melville,  Lord  Melville,  a  nobleman  connected  by 
affinity  with  the  unfortunate  Monmouth,  and  with  that  Leslie 
who  had,  in  1640,  invaded  England  at  the  head  of  a  Scottish 
army.  Melville  had  always  been  accounted  a  Whig  and  a  Pres- 
byterian. Those  who  speak  of  him  most  favourably  have  not 
ventured  to  ascribe  to  him  eminent  intellectual  endowment  or 
exalted  public  spirit.  But  he  appears  from  his  letters  to  have 
been  by  no  means  deficient  in  that  homely  prudence  the  want  of 
which  has  often  been  fatal  to  men  of  brighter  genius  and  of 
purer  virtue.  That  prudence  had  restrained  him  from  going  very 
far  in  opposition  to  the  tyranny  of  the  Stuarts  :  but  he  had  list- 
ened while  his  friends  talked  about  resistance,  and  therefore,  when 
the  Rye  House  plot  was  discovered,  thought  it  expedient  to  retire 
to  the  Continent.  In  his  absence  he  was  accused  of  treason,  and 
was  convicted  on  evidence  which  would  not  have  satisfied  any 
impartial  tribunal.  He  was  condemned  to  death :  his  honour 
and  lands  were  declared  forfeit :  his  arms  were  torn  with  con- 
tumely out  of  the  Heralds'  Book ;  and  his  domains  swelled  the 
estate  of  the  cruel  and  rapacious  Perth.  The  fugitive  meanwhile 
with  characteristic  wariness,  lived  quietly  on  the  Continent,  and 
discountenanced  the  unhappy  projects  of  his  kinsman  Monmouth, 
but  cordially  approved  of  the  enterprise  of  the  Prince  of 
Orange. 

Illness  had  prevented  Melville  from*  sailing  with  the  Dutch 
expedition  ;  but  he  arrived  in  London  a  few  hours  after  the  new 
Sovereigns  had  been  proclaimed  there.  William  instantly  sent 
him  down  to  Edinburgh,  in  the  hope,  as  it  should  seem,  that 
the  Presbyterians  would  be  disposed  to  listen  to  moderate  coun- 
sels proceeding  from  a  man  who  was  attached  to  their  cause, 
and  who  had  suffered  for  it.  Melville's  second  son,  David, 
who  had  inherited,  through  his  mother,  the  title  of  Earl  of 
Leven,  and  who  had  acquired  some  military  experience  in  the 
service  of  the  Elector  of  Brandenburgh,  had  the  honour  of  be* 


246  HISTOUY    OF    ENGLAND. 

ing  the  bearer  of  a  letter  from  the  new  King  of  England  to  the 
Scottish  Convention.* 

James  had  entrusted  the  conduct  of  his  affairs  in  Scotland  to 
John  Graham,  Viscount  Dundee,  and  Colin  Lindsay,  Earl  of 
Balcarras.  Dundee  had  commanded  a  body  of  Scottish  troops 
which  had  marched  into  England  to  oppose  the  Dutch  :  but  he 
had  found,  in  the  inglorious  campaign  which  had  been  fatal  to 
the  dynasty  of  Stuart,  no  opportunity  of  displaying  the  courage 
and  military  skill  which  those  who  most  detest  his  merciless 
nature  allow  him  to  have  possessed.  He  lay  with  his  forces  not 
far  from  Watford,  when  he  was  informed  that  Jarnes  had  fled 
from  Whitehall  and  that  Feversham  had  ordered  all  the  royal 
army  to  disband.  The  Scottish  regiments  were  thus  left,  with- 
out pay  or  provisions,  in  the  midst  of  a  foreign  and  indeed  a 
hostile  nation.  Dundee,  it  is  said,  wept  with  grief  and  rage. 
Soon,  however,  more  cheering  intelligence  arrived  from  various 
quarters.  William  wrote  a  few  lines  to  say  that,  if  the  Scots 
would  remain  quiet,  he  would  pledge  his  honour  for  their  safe- 
ty ;  and,  some  hours  later,  it  was  known  that  James  had  re- 
turned to  his  capital.  Dundee  repaired  instantly  to  London.f 
There  he  met  his  friend  Balcarras,  who  had  just  arrived  from 
Edinburgh.  Balcarras  a  man  distinguished  by  his  handsome 
person  and  by  his  accomplishments,  had,  in  his  youth,  affected  the 
character  of  a  patriot,  but  had  deserted  the  popular  cause,  had 
accepted  a  seat  in  the  Privy  Council,  had  become  a  tool  of  Perth 
and  Melfort,  and  had  been  one  of  the  Commissioners  who  were 
appointed  to  execute  the  office  of  Treasurer,  when  Queensbury 
was  disgraced  for  refusing  to  betray  the  interests  of  the  Pro- 
testant religion,  t 

Dundee  and  Balcarras  went  together  to  Whitehall,  and  had 
the  honour  of  accompanying  James  in  his  last  walk  up  and 
down  the  Mall.  He  told  them  that  he  intended  to  put  his  affairs 
in  Scotland  under  their  management.  "  You,  my  Lord  Bal- 

*  As  to  Melville,  see  the  Leven  and  Melville  Papers,  Passim,  and  the  preface; 
the  Act.  Parl.  Soot.,  June  16,  1685  ;  and  the  Appendix,  June  13  ;  Burnet,  ii.  24 ; 
and  the  Burnet  ATS.  Hart.  6584. 

Creichton's  Memoirs.  t  Mackay's  Memoirs. 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  247 

carras,  must  undertake  the  civil  business  :  and  you,  my  Lord 
Dundee,  shall  have  a  commission  from  me  to  command  the 
troops."  The  two  noblemen  vowed  that  they  would  prove 
themselves  deserving  of  his  confidence,  and  disclaimed  all 
thought  of  making  their  peace  with  the  Prince  of  Orange.* 

On  the  following  day  James  left  Whitehall  for  ever ;  and 
the  Prince  of  Orange  arrived  at  Saint  James's.  Both  Dundee 
and  Balcarras  swelled  the  crowd  which  thronged  to  greet  the 
deliverer,  and  were  not  ungraciously  received.  Both  were  well 
known  to  him.  Dundee  bad  served  under  him  on  the  Conti- 
nent ;  f  and  the  first  wife  of  Balcarras  had  been  a  lady  of  the 
House  of  Orange,  and  had  worn  on  her  wedding  day,  a  superb 
pair  of  emerald  earrings,  the  gift  of  her  cousin  the  Prince. $ 

The  Scottish  Whigs,  then  assembled  in  great  numbers  at 
Westminster,  earnestly  pressed  William  to  proscribe  by  name 
four  or  five  men  who  had,  during  the  evil^times,  borne  a  con- 
spicuous part  in  the  proceedings  of  the  Privy  Council  at  Edin- 
burgh. Dundee  and  Balcarras  were  particularly  mentioned. 
But  the  Prince  had  determined  that,  as  far  as  his  power  ex- 
tended, all  the  past  should  be  covered  with  a  general  amnesty, 

*  Memoirs  of  the  Lindsays. 

t  About  the  early  relation  between  "William  and  Dundee,  some  Jacobite,  many 
years  after  they  were  both  dead,  invented  a  story  which  by  successive  embellish- 
ments was  at  last  improved  into  a  romance  such  as  it  seems  strange  that  even  a 
child  should  believe  to  be  true.  The  last  edition  runs  thus.  William's  horse 
was  killed  under  him  at  Seneff,  and  his  life  was  iu  imminent  danger.  Dundee, 
then  Captain  G  naham,  mounted  His  Highness  again.  William  promised  to  re- 
ward this  service  with  promotion,  but  broke  his  word,  and  give  to  another  the 
commission  which  Graham  had  been  led  to  expect.  The  injured  hero  went  to 
Loo.  There  he  met  his  successful  competitor  and  gave  him  a  box  on  the  ear. 
The  punishment  for  striking  in  the  palace  was  the  loss  of  the  offending  right 
hand  ;  but  this  punishment  the  Prince  of  Orange  ungraciously  remitted.  "  You," 
ho  said,  "saved  my  life:  I  spare  your  right  hand  ;  and  now  we  are  quits." 

Those  who,  down  to  our  time,  have  repeated  this  nonsense  seem  to  have 
thought,  first,  that  the  Act  of  Henry  the  Eighth  "  for  punishment  of  murder  and 
malicious  bloodshed  within  the  King's  Court"  (Stat.33  Hen.  VIII.  c.  2)  was  law 
in  Guelders  ;  and,  secondly,  that,  in  lf>74,  William  was  a  King,  and  his  house  a 
King's  Court.  They  were  also  not  aware  that  he  did  not  purchase  Loo  till  long 
after  Dundee  had  left  the  Netherlands.  See  Harris's  Description  of  Loo,  1699. 

This  legend,  of  which  I  have  not  been  able  to  discover  the  slightest  trace  in 
the  voluminous  Jacobite  literature  of  William's  reign,  seems  to  have  originated 
about  a  quarter  of  a  century  after  Dundee's  death,  and  to  have  attained  its  full 
absurdity  in  another  quarter  of  a  century. 

t  Memoirs  of  the  Lindsays. 


248  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

and  absolutely  refused  to  make  any  declaration  which  could 
drive  to  despair  even  the  most  guilty  of  his  uncle's  servants. 

Balcarras  went  repeatedly  to  Saint  James's,  had  several 
audiences  of  William,  professed  deep  respect  for  His  Highness, 
and  owned  that  King  James  had  committed  great  errors,  but  would 
not  promise  to  concur  in  a  vote  of  deposition.  William  gave 
BO  signs  of  displeasure,  but  said  at  parting;  "Take  care,  my 
Lord,  that  you  keep  within  the  law ;  for,  if  you  break  it,  you 
must  expect  to  be  left  to  it."* 

Dundee  sterns  to  have  been  less  ingenuous.  He  employed 
the  mediation  of  Burnet,  opened  a  negotiation  with  Saint 
James's,  declared  himself  willing  to  acquiesce  in  the  new  order 
of  things,  obtained  from  William  a  promise  of  protection,  and 
promised  in  return  to  live  peaceably.  Such  credit  was  given  to 
his  professions,  that  he  was  suffered  to  travel  down  to  Scotland 
under  the  escort  of  a  troop  of  cavalry.  Without  such  an  escort 
the  man  of  blood,  wliose  name  was  never  mentioned  but  with  a 
shudder  at  the  hearth  of  any  Presbyterian  family,  would,  at  that 
conjuncture,  have  had  but  a  perilous  journey  through  Berwick- 
shire and  the  Lothians.t 

February  was  drawing  to  a  close  when  Dundee  and  Balcarras 
reached  Edinburgh.  They  had  some  hope  that  they  might  be 
at  the  head  of  a  majority  in  the  Convention.  They  therefore 
exerted  themselves  vigorously  to  consolidate  and -animate  their 
party.  They  assured  the  rigid  royalists,  who  had  a  scruple 
about  sitting  in  an  assembly  convoked  by  an  usurper,  that  the 
rightful  K.ing  particularly  wished  no  friend  of  hereditary  mon- 
archy to  be  absent.  More  than  one  waverer  was  kept  steady 
by  being  assured,  in  confident  terms,  that  a  speedy  restoration 
was  inevitable.  Gordon  had  determined  to  surrender  the  Castle, 
and  had  begun  to  remove  his  furniture :  but  Dundee  and  Bal- 
carras prevailed  on  him  to  hold  out  some  time  longer.  They 
informed  him  that  they  had  received  from  Saint  Germains  full 
powers  to  adjourn  the  Convention  to  Stirling,  and  that,  if  things 
went  ill  at  Edinburgh,  those  powers  would  be  used.J 

*  Memoirs  of  the  Lindsays.         t  Buruet,  ii.  22  ;  Memoirs  of  the  Lindsays, 
t  Bak-arras'e  Memoirs,  •   • 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  249 

At  length  the  fourteenth  of  March,  the  day  fixed  for  the 
meeting  of  the  Estates,  arrived,  and  the  Parliament  House  was 
crowded.  Nine  prelates  were  in  their  places.  When  Argyle 
presented  himself,  a  single  lord  protested  against  the  admission 
of  a  person  whom  a  legal  sentence,  passed  in  due  form  and 
still  unreversed,  had  deprived  of  the  honours  of  the  peerage. 
But  this  objection  was  overruled  by  the  general  sense  of  the 
assembly.  When  Melville  appeared,  no  voice  was  raised  against 
his  admission.  The  Bishop  of  Edinburgh  officiated  as  chaplain, 
and  made  it  one  of  his  petitions  that  God  would  help  and  re- 
store King  James.*  It  soon  appeared  that  the  general  feeling 
of  the  Convention  was  by  no  means  in  harmony  with  this 
prayer.  The  'first  matter  to  be  decided  was  the  choice  of  a 
president.  The  Duke  of  Hamilton  was  supported  by  tre 
W^iigs,  the  Marquess  of  Athol  by  the  Jacobites.  Neither  can- 
didate possessed,  and  neither  deserved,  the  q^tire  confidence  of 
his  supporters.  Hamilton  had  been  a  Privy  Councillor  of 
James,  had  borne  a  part  in  many  unjustifiable  acts,  and  had 
offered  but  a  very  cautious  and  languid  opposition  to  the  most 
daring  attacks  on  the  laws  and  religion  of  Scotland.  Not  till 
the  Dutcn  guards  were  at  Whitehall  had  he  ventured  to  speak 
out.  Then  he  had  joined  the  victorious  party,  and  had  assured 
the  Whigs  that  he  had  pretended  to  be  their  enemy,  only  in 
order  that  he  might,  without  incurring  suspicion,  act  as  their 
friend.  Athol  was  still  less  to  be  trusted.  His  abilities  were 
mean,  his  temper  false,  pusillanimous,  and  cruel.  In  the  late 
reign  he  had  gained  a  dishonourable  notoriety  by  the  barbarous 
actions  of  which  he  had  been  guilty  in  Argyleshire.  He  had 
turned  with  the  turn  of  fortune,  and  had  paid  servile  court  to 
the  Prince  of  Orange,  but  had  been  coldly  received,  and  had 
now,  from  mere  mortification,  come  back  to  the  party  which  he 
had  deserted,  f  Neither  of  the  rival  noblemen  had  chosen  to 
stake  the  dignities  and  lauds  of  his  house  on  the  issue  of  the 

*  Act.  Parl.  Scot.,  Mar.  14,  1689  ;  History  of  the  late  Revolution  in  Scotland, 
1690  ;  An  Account  of  tlio  Proceedings  of  the  Estates  of  Scotland,  fol.  Lond.  1G89. 

t  B.-ilcarras's  narra'  ive  exhibits  both  Hamilton  and  Athol  in  a  most  unfavour- 
able light.  See  also  the  Life  of  James,  ii.  £38,  339. 


250  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

contention  between  the  rival  Kings.  The  eldest  son  of  Ham- 
ilton had  declared  for  James,  and  the  eldest  son  of  Athol  for 
William,  so  that,  in  any  event,  both  coronets  and  both  estates 
were  safe. 

But  in  Scotland  the  fashionable  notions  touching  political 
morality  were  lax  ;  and  the  aristocratical  sentiment  was  strong. 
The  Whigs  were  therefore  willing  to  forget  that  Hamilton  had 
lately  sate  in  the  council  cf  James.  The  Jacobites  were  equally 
willing  to  forget  that  Athol  had  lately  fawned  on  William.  In 
political  inconsistency  those  two  great  lords  were  far  indeed 
from  standing  by  themselves  ;  but  in  dignity  and  power  they 
had  scarcely  an  equal  in  the  assembly.  Their  descent  was  emi- 
nently illustrious  :  their  influence  was  immense:  one  of  them 
could  raise  the  Western  Lowlands ;  the  other  could  bring  into 
the  field  an  army  of  northern  mountaineers.  Round  these  chiefs 
therefore  the  hos(^  factions  gathered. 

The  votes  were  counted  ;  and  it  appeared  that  Hamilton  had 
a  majority  of  forty.  The  consequence  was  that  about  forty  of 
the  defeated  party  instantly  passed  over  to  the  victors.*  At 
Westminster  such  a  defection  would  have  been  thought  strange : 
but  it  seems  to  have  caused  little  surprise  at  Edinburgh.  It  is 
a  remarkable  circumstance  that  the  same  country  should  have 
produced  in  the  same  age  the  most  wonderful  specimens  of 
both  extremes  of  human  nature.  No  class  of  men  mentioned  in 
history  has  ever  adhered  to  a  principle  with  more  inflexible  per- 
tinacity than  was  found  among  the  Scotch  Puritans.  Fine  and 
imprisonment,  the  shears  and  the  branding  iron,  the  boot,  the 
thumbscrew,  and  the  gallows  could  not  extort  from  the  stub- 
born Covenanter  one  evasive  word  on  which  it  was  possible  to 
put  a  sense  inconsistent  with  his  theological  system.  Even  in 
things  indifferent  he  would  hear  of  no  compromise  ;  and  he  was 
but  too  ready  to  consider  all  who  recommended  prudence  and 
charity  as  traitors  to  the  cause  of  truth.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  Scotchmen  of  that  generation  who  made  a  figure  in  the 
Parliament  House  and  in  the  Council  Chamber  were  the  most 

*  Act.  Parl.  Scot.,  March  14th,  1688-9  ;  Balcarras's  Memoirs  ;  History  of  the 
late  Revolution  in  Scotland  ;  Life  of  James,  it.  342. 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  251 

dishonest  and  unblushing  tiineservers  that  the  world  has  ever 
seen.  The  English  marvelled  alike  at  both  classes.  There 
were  indeed  many  stouthearted  nonconformists  in  the  South ; 
but  scarcely  any  who  in  obstinacy,  pugnacity,  and  hardihood 
could  bear  a  comparison  with  the  men  of  the  school  of  Cameron. 
There  were  many  knavish  politicians  in  the  South  ;  but  few  so 
utterly  destitute  of  morality,  and  still  fewer  so  utterly  destitute 
of  shame,  as  the  men  of  the  school  of  Lauderdale.  Perhaps  it 
is  natural  that  the  most  callous  and  impudent  vice  should  be 
found  in  the  near  neighbourhood  of  unreasonable  and  impracti- 
cable virtue.  Where  enthusiasts  are  ready  to  destroy  or  to  be  de- 
stroyed for  trifles  magnified  into  importance  by  a  squeamish 
conscience,  it  is  not  strange  that  the  very  name  of  conscience 
should  become  a  byword  of  contempt  to  cool  and  shrewd  men  of 
business. 

The  majority,  reinforced  by  the  crowd  of  deserters  from  the 
minority,  proceeded  to  name  a  Committee  of  Elections.  Fif- 
teen persons  were  chosen,  and  it  soon  appeared  that  twelve  of 
these  were  not  disposed  to  examine  severely  into  the  regularity 
of  any  proceeding  of  which  the  result  had  been  to  send  up  a 
Whig  to  the  Parliament  House.  The  Duke  of  Hamilton  is  said 
to  have  been  disgusted  by  the  gross  partiality  of  his  own  fol- 
lowers, and  to  have  exerted  himself,  with  but  little  success,  to 
restrain  their  violence.* 

Before  the  Estates  proceeded  to  deliberate  on  the  business 
for  which  they  had  met,  they  thought  it  necessary  to  provide 
for  their  own  security.  They  could  not  be  perfectly  at  ease 
while  the  roof  under  which  they  sate  was  commanded  by  the 
batteries  of  the  Castle.  A  deputation  was  therefore  sent  to  in- 
form Gordon  that  the  Convention  required  him  to  evacuate  the 
fortress  within  twenty-four  hours,  and  that  if  he  complied,  his 
past  conduct  should  not  be  remembered  against  him.  He  asked 
a  night  for  consideration.  During  that  night  his  wavering  mind 
was  confirmed  by  the  exhortations  of  Dundee  and  Balcarras. 
On  the  morrow  he  sent  an  answer  drawn  in  respectful  but  eva- 
sive terms.  He  was  very  far,  he  declared,  from  meditating 

*  Balearras's  Memoirs  ;  History  of  the  late  Revolution  in  Scotland,  1690. 


252  HISTOKY    OF    ENGLAND. 

harm  to  the  City  of  Edinburgh.  Least  of  all  could  he  harbour 
any  thought  of  molesting  an  august  assembly  which  he  regarded 
with  profound  reverence.  He  would  willingly  give  bond  for 
his  good  behaviour  to  the  amount  of  twenty  thousand  pounds 
sterling.  But  he  was  in  communication  with  the  government 
now  established  in  England.  He  was  in  hourly  expectation  of 
important  despatches  from  that  government ;  and,  till  they  ar- 
rived, he  should  not  feel  himself  justified  in  resigning  his  com- 
mand. These  excuses  were  not  admitted.  Heralds  and  trump- 
eters were  sent  to  summon  the  Castle  in  form  and  to  denounce  the 
penalties  of  high  treason  against  those  who  should  continue  to 
occupy  that  fortress  in  defiance  of  the  authority  of  the  Estates. 
Guards  were  at  the  same  time  posted  to  intercept  all  communi- 
cation between  the  garrison  and  the  city.* 

Two  days  had  been  spent  in  these  preludes,  and  it  was  ex- 
pected that  on  the  third  morning  the  great  contest  would  begin. 
Meanwhile  the  population  of  Edinburgh  was  in  an  excited  state. 
It  had  been  discovered  that  Dundee  had  paid  visits  to  the  Castle  ; 
and  it  was  believed  that  his  exhortations  had  induced  the  garri- 
son to  hold  out.  His  own  soldiers  were  known  to  be  gathering 
round  him  ;  and  it  might  well  be  apprehended  that  he  would 
make  some  desperate  attempt.  He,  on  the  other  hand,  had  been 
informed  that  the  Western  Covenanters  who  filled  the  cellars  of 
the  city,  had  vowed  vengeance  on  him  :  and,  in  truth,  when  we 
consider  that  their  temper  was  singularly  savage  and  implacable, 
that  they  had  been  taught  to  regard  the  slaying  of  a  persecutor 
as  a  duty,  that  no  examples  furnished  by  Holy  Writ  had  been 
more  frequently  held  up  to  their  admiration  than  Ehud  stabbing 
Eglon  and  Samuel  hewing  Agag  limb  from  limb,  that  they  had 
never  heard  any  achievement  in  the  history  of  their  own  country 
more  warmly  praised  by  their  favourite  teachers  than  the  butch- 
ery of  Cardinal  Beatoun  and  of  Archbishop  Sharpe,  we  may 
well  wonder  that  a  man  who  had  shed  the  blood  of  the  saints 
like  water  should  have  been  able  to  walk  the  High  Street  in 

*  Act.  Parl.  Scot.,  March  14,  and  15,  1689  ;  Balearras's  Memoirs ;  London 
Gaz.  March  2,"  ;  History  of  th«  late  RevoHiJtion  in  Scotland,  1690 ;  Account  of  the 
Proceedings  of  the  Estates  of  Scotland,  1889. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  253 

safety  during  a  single  day.  The  enemy  whom  Dundee  had 
most  reason  to  fear  was  a  youth  of  distinguished  courage  aiid 
abilities  named  William  Cleland.  Cleland  had,  when  little  more 
than  sixteen  years  old,  borne  arms  in  that  insurrection  which 
had  been  put  down  at  Both  well  Bridge.  He  had  since  disgusted 
some  virulent  fanatics  by  his  humanity  and  moderation.  But 
with  the  great  body  of  Presbyterians  his  name  stood  high.  For 
with  the  strict  morality  and  ardent  zeal  of  a  Puritan  he  united 
some  accomplishments  of  which  few  Puritans  could  boast.  His 
manners  were  polished,  and  his  literary  and  scientific  attainments 
respectable.  He  was  a  linguist,  a  mathematician,  and  a  poet. 
It  is  true  that  his  hymns,  odes,  ballads,  and  Hudibrastic  satires 
are  of  very  little  intrinsic  value  ;  but,  when  it  is  considered 
that  he  was  a  mere  boy  when  most  of  them  were  written,  it 
must  be  admitted  that  they  show  considerable  vigour  of  mind. 
He  was  now  at  Edinburgh :  his  influence  among  the  "West 
Country  Whigs  assembled  there  was  great :  he  hated  Dundee 
with  deadly  hatred,  and  was  believed  to  be  meditating  some  act 
of  violence.* 

On  the  fifteenth  of  March  Dundee  received  information  that 
some  of  the  Covenanters  had  bound  themselves  together  to  slay 
him  and  Sir  George  Mackenzie,  whose  eloquence  and  learning, 
long  prostituted  to  the  service  of  tyranny,  had  made  him  more 
odious  to  the  Presbyterians  than  any  other  man  of  the  gown. 

*  See  Cleland's  Poems,  and  the  commendatory  poems  contained  in  the  same 
volume,  Edinburgh,  1C97.  It  has  been  repeatedly  asserted  that  this  William 
Cleland  was  the  father  of  William  Cleland,  the  Commissioner  of  Taxes,  who  was 
well  known  twenty  years  later  in  the  literary  society  of  London,  who  rendered 
some  not  very  reputable  services  to  Pope,  and  whose  son  John  was  the  author 
of  an  infamous  book  but  too  widely  celebrated.  This  is  an  entire  mistake. 
William  Cleland,  who  fought  at  Bothwell  Bridge,  was  not  twenty-eight  when  he 
was  killed  in  August  1G89  ;  and  William  Cleland,  the  Commissioner  of  Taxes, 
died  at  sixty-seven  in  September  1741.  The  former  therefore  cannot  have  been, 
the  father  of  the  latter.  See  the  Exact  Narrative  of  the  battle  of  Dunkeld  ;  the 
Gentleman's  Magazine  for  174C;  and  Warburtoii's  note  on  the  Letter  to  the 
Publisher  of  the  Dunciad,  a  letter  signed  W.  Cleland,  but  really  written  by  Pope. 
In  a  paper  drawn  up  by  Sir  Robert  Hamilton,  the  oracle  of  the  extreme  Coven- 
anters, and  a  bloodthirsty  ruffian,  Cleland  is  mentioned  as  having  been  once 
leagued  with  those  fanatics,  but  afterwards  a  great  opposer  of  their  testimony. 
Cleland  probably  did  not  agree  with  Hamilton  in  thinking  it  a  sacred  duty  to  cut 
the  throats  of  prisoners  of  war  who  had  been  received  to  quarters.  See  Hamil- 
ton's Letter  to  the  Societies,  Dec.  7, 1685. 


254  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

Dundee  applied  to  Hamilton  for  protection  ;  and  Hamilton 
advised  him  to  bring  the  matter  under  the  consideration  of  the' 
Convention  at  the"  next  sitting.* 

Before  that  sitting  a  person  named  Crane  arrived  from  France 
with  a  letter  addressed  by  the  fugitive  King  to  the  Estates. 
The  letter  was  sealed  :  the  bearer,  strange  to  say,  was  not 
furnished  with  a  copy  for  the  information  of  the  heads  of  the 
Jacobite  party  ;  nor  did  he  bring  any  message,  written  or  ver- 
bal, to  either  of  James's  agents.  Balcarras  and  Dundee  were 
mortified  by  finding  that  so  little  confidence  was  reposed  in  them, 
and  were  harassed  by  painful  doubts  touching  the  contents  of 
the  document  on  which  so  much  depended.  They  were  willing, 
however,  to  hope  for  the  best.  King  James  could  not,  situated 
as  he  was,  be  so  ill  adfised  as  to  act  in  direct  opposition  to  the 
counsel  and  entreaties  of  his  friends.  His  letter,  when  opened, 
must  be  found  to  contain  such  gracious  assurances  as  would 
animate  the  royalists  and  conciliate  the  moderate  Whigs.  His 
adherents,  therefore,  determined  that  it  should  be  produced. 

When  the  Convention  reassembled  on  the  morning  of  Sat- 
urday the  sixteenth  of  March,  it  was  proposed  that  measures 
should  be  taken  for  the  personal  security  of  the  members.  It 
was  alleged  that  the  life  of  Dundee  had  been  threatened  ;  that 
two  men  of  sinister  appearance  had  been  watching  the  house 
where  he  lodged,  and  had  been  heard  to  say  that  they  would 
use  the  dog  as  he  had  used  them.  Mackenzie  complained  that 
he  too  was  in  danger,  and,  with  his  usual  copiousness  and  force 
of  language,  demanded  the  protection  of  the  Estates.  But  the 
matter  was  lightly  treated  by  the  majority :  and  the  Convention 
passed  on  to  other  business. f 

It  was  then  announced  that  Crane  was  at  the  door  of  the 
Parliament  House.  He  was  admitted.  The  paper  of  which  he 
was  in  charge  was  laid  on  the  table.  Hamilton  remarked  that 
there  was,  in  the  hands  of  the  Earl  of  Leven,  a  communication 

*  Balearras's  Memoirs. 

t  Balcarras's  Memoirs.  But  the  fullest  account  of  these  proceeding  is  fur- 
nished by  some  manuscript  notes  which  are  in  the  library  of  the  Faculty  of  Ad- 
vocates. Balcarras's  dates  are  not  quite  exact.  He  probably  trusted  to  his 
memory  for  them.  I  have  corrected  them  from  the  parliamentary  record. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  255 

from  the  Prince  by  whose  authority  the  Estates  had  been  con- 
voked. That  communication  seemed  to  be  entitled  to  prece- 
dence. The  Convention  was  of  the  same  opinion  ;  arid  the  well 
weighed  and  prudent  letter  of  William  was  read. 

It  was  then  moved  that  the  letter  of  James  should  be  opened. 
The  Whigs  objected  that  it  might  possibly  contain  a  mandate 
dissolving  the  Convention.  They  therefore  proposed  that,  be- 
fore the  seal  was  broken,  the  Estates  should  resolve  to  con- 
tinue sitting,  notwithstanding  any  such  mandate.  The  Jac- 
obites, who  knew  no  more  than  the  Whigs  what  was  in  the  letter, 
and  were  impatient  to  have  it  read,  eagerly  assented.  A  vote 
was  passed  by  which  the  members  bound  themselves  to  consider 
any  order  which  should  command  them  to  separate  as  a  nullity, 
and  to  remain  assembled  till  they  should  have  accomplished  the 
work  of  securing  the  liberty  and  religion  of  Scotland.  This 
vote  was  signed  by  almost  all  the  lords  and  gentlemen  who 
were  present.  Seven  out  of  nine  bishops  subscribed  it.  The 
names  of  Dundee  and  Balcarras,  written  by  their  own  hands, 
may  still  be  seen  on  the  original  roll.  Balcarras  afterwards  ex- 
cused what,  on  his  principles,  was,  beyond  all  dispute,  a  flagrant 
act  of  treason,  by  saying  that  he  and  his  friends  had,  from  zeal 
for  their  master's  interest,  concurred  in  a  declaration  of  rebellion 
against  their  master's  authority  ;  that  they  had  anticipated  the 
most  salutary  effects  from  the  letter ;  and  that,  if  they  had  not 
made  some  concession  to  the  majority,  the  letter  would  not 
have  been  opened. 

In  a  few  minutes  the  hopes  of  Balcarras  were  grievously 
disappointed.  The  letter  from  which  so  much  had  been  hoped 
and  feared  was  read  with  all  the  honours  which  Scottish  Par- 
liaments were  in  the  habit  of  paying  to  royal  communications  :  but 
every  word  carried  despair  to  the  hearts  of  the  Jacobites.  It  was 
plain  that  adversity  had  taught  James  neither  wisdom  nor  mercy. 
All  was  obstinacy,  cruelty,  insolence.  A  pardon  was  promised 
to  those  traitors  who  should  return  to  their  allegiance  within  a 
fortnight.  Against  all  others  unsparing  vengeance  was  de- 
nounced. Not  only  was  no  sorrow  expressed  for  past  offences : 
but  the  letter  was  itself  a  new  offence  :  for  it  was  written  and 


256  HISTORY   OP   ENGLAND. 

countersigned  by  the  apostate  Melfort,  who  was,  by  the  statutes 
of  the  realm,  incapable  of  holding  the  office  of  Secretary,  and 
who  was  not  less  abhorred  by  the  Protestant  Tories  than  by  the 
Whigs.  The  hall  was  in  a  tumult.  The  enemies  of  James 
were  l<4ud  and  vehement.  His  friends,  angry  with  him,  and 
ashamed  of  him,  saw  that  it  was  vain  to  think  of  continuing  the 
struggle  in  the  Convention.  Every  vote  which  had  been  doubt- 
ful when  his  letter  was  unsealed  was  now  irrecoverably  lost. 
The  sitting  closed  in  great  agitation.* 

It  was  Saturday  afternoon.  There  was  to  be  no  other 
meeting  till  Monday  morning.  The  Jacobite  leaders  held  a 
consultation,  and  came  to  the  conclusion  that  it  was  necessary 
to  take  a  decided  step.  Dundee  and  Balcarras  must  use  the 
powers  with  which  they  had  been  entrusted.  The  minority 
must  forthwith  leave  Edinburgh  and  assemble  at  Stirling.  Athol 
assented,  and  undertook  to  bring  a  great  body  of  his  clansmen 
from  the  Highlands  to  protect  the  deliberations  of  the  Royalist 
Convention.  Everything  was  arranged  for  the  secession ;  but, 
in  a  few  hours,  the  tardiness  of  one  man  and  the  haste  of  an- 
other ruined  the  whole  plan. 

The  Monday  came.  The  Jacobite  lords  and  gentlemen 
were  actually  taking  horse  for  Stirling,  when  Athol  asked  for 
a  delay  of  twenty-four  hours.  He  had  no  personal  reason  to 
be  in  haste.  By  staying  he  ran  no  risk  of  being  assassinated. 
By  going  he  incurred  the  risks  inseparable  from  civil  war.  The 
members  of  his  party,  unwilling  to  separate  from  him,  consent- 
ed to  the  postponement  which  he  requested,  and  repaired  once 
more  to  the  Parliament  House.  Dundee  alone  refused  to  stay 
a  moment  longer.  His  life  was  in  danger.  The  Convention 
had  refused  to  protect  him.  He  would  not  remain  to  be  a  mark 
for  the  pistols  and  daggers  of  murderers.  Balcarras  expostu- 
lated to  no  purpose.  "  By  departing  alone,"  he  said,  "  you 
will  give  the  alarm  and  break  up  the  whole  scheme."  But 
Dundee  was  obstinate.  Brave  as  he  undoubtedly  was,  he  seems, 

*Act.  Parl.  Scot.,  March  16,  1688-9;  Balcarras's  Memoirs;  History  of  the 
late  Revolution  in  Scotland,  1690  ;  Account  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  Estates  of 
Scotland,  1689 ;  London  Gaz.,  March  25,  1689  ;  Life  of  James,  ii.  342.  Burnet 
blunders  strangely  about  these  transactions. 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  257 

like  many  other  brave  men,  to  have  been  less  proof  against  the 
danger  of  assassination  than  against  any  other  form  of  danger. 
He  knew  what  the  hatred  of  the  Covenanters  was  :  he  knew 
how  well  he  had  earned  their  hatred  ;  and  he  was  haunted  by 
that  consciousness  of  inexpiable  guilt,  and  by  that  dread  of  a 
terrible  retribution,  which  the  ancient  polytheists  personified 
under  the  awful  name  of  the  Furies.  His  old  troopers,  the 
Satan s  and  Beelzebubs  who  had  shared  his  crimes,  and  who 
now  shared  his  perils,  were  ready  to  be  the  companions  of  his 
flight. 

Meanwhile  the  Convention  had  assembled.  Mackenzie  was 
on  his  legs,  and  was  pathetically  lamenting  the  hard  condition 
of  the  Estates,  at  once  commanded  by  the  guns  of  a  fortress 
and  menaced  by  a  fanatical  rabble,  when  he  was  interrupted  by 
some  sentinels  who  came  running  from  the  posts  near  the  Cas- 
tle. They  had  seen  Dundee  at  the  head  of  fifty  horse  on  the 
Stirling  road.  That  road  ran  close  under  the  huge  rock  on 
which  the  citadel  is  built.  Gordon  had  appeared  on  the  ram- 
parts, and  had  made  a  sign  that  he  had  something  to  say.  Dun- 
dee had  climbed  high  enough  to  hear  and  to  be  heard,  and  was 
then  actually  conferring  with  the  Duke.  Up  to  that  moment 
the  hatred  with  which  the  Presbyterian  members  of  the  assem- 
bly regarded  the  merciless  persecutor  of  their  brethren  in  the 
faith  had  been  restrained  by  the  decorous  forms  of  parliament- 
ary deliberation.  But  now  the  explosion  was  terrible.  Hamil- 
ton himself,  who,  by  the  acknowledgment  of  his  opponents,  had 
hitherto  performed  the  duties  of  President  with  gravity  and 
impartiality,  was  the  loudest  and  fiercest  man  in  the  hall.  "  It 
is  high  time,"  he  cried,  "  that  we  should  look  to  ourselves. 
The  enemies  of  our  religion  and  of  our  civil  freedom  are  mus- 
tering all  around  us ;  and  we  may  well  suspect  that  they  have 
accomplices  even  here.  Lock  the  doors.  Lay  the  keys  on  the 
table.  Let  nobody  go  out  but  those  lords  and  gentlemen  whom 
we  shall  appoint  to  call  the  citizens  to  arms.  There  are  some 
good  men  from  the  West  in  Edinburgh,  men  for  whom  I  can 
answer."  The  assembly  raised  a  general  cry  of  assent. 
Several  members  of  the  majority  boasted  that  they  too  had 
VOL.  III.— 17 


258  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

brought  with  them  trusty  retainers  who  would  turn  out  at  a 
moment's  notice  against  Claverhouse  and  his  dragoons.  All 
that  Hamilton  proposed  was  instantly  done.  The  Jacobites, 
silent  and  unresisting,  became  prisoners.  Leven  went  forth 
and  ordered  the  drums  to  beat.  The  Covenanters  of  Lanark- 
shire and  Ayrshire  promptly  obeyed  the  signal.  The  force 
thus  assembled  had  indeed  no  very  military  appearance,  but 
was  amply  sufficient  to  overawe  the  adherents  of  the  House  of 
Stuart.  From  Dundee  nothing  was  to  be  hoped  or  feared.  He 
had  already  scrambled  down  the  Castle  hill,  rejoined  his 
troopers,  and  galloped  westward.  Hamilton  now  ordered  the 
doors  to  be  opened.  The  suspected  members  were  at  liberty 
to  depart.  Humbled  and  brokenspirited,  yet  glad  that  they 
had  come  off  so  well,  they  stole  forth  through  the  crowd  of 
stern  fanatics  which  filled  the  High  Street.  All  thought  of 
secession  was  at  an  end.* 

On  the  following  day  it  was  resolved  that  the  kingdom 
should  be  put  into  a  posture  of  defence.  The  preamble  of 
this  resolution  contained  a  severe  reflection  on  the  perfidy  of 
the  traitor  who,  within  a  few  hours  after  he  had,  by  an  engage- 
ment subscribed  with  his  own  hand,  bound  himself  not  to  quit 
his  post  in  the  Convention,  had  set  the  example  of  desertion 
and  given  the  signal  of  civil  war.  All  Protestants,  from  sixteen 
to  sixty,  were  ordered  to  hold  themselves  in  readiness  to  as- 
semble in  arms  at  the  first  summons ;  and,  that  none  might 
pretend  ignorance,  it  was  directed  that  the  edict  should  be  pro- 
claimed at  all  the  market  crosses  throughout  the  realm. t 

The  Estates  then  proceeded  to  send  a  letter  of  thanks  to 
William.  To  this  letter  were  attached  the  signatures  of  many 
noblemen  and  gentlemen  who  were  in  the  interest  of  the  ban- 
ished King.  The  Bishops  however  unanimously  refused  to 
subscribe  their  names. 

It  had  long  been  the  custom  of  the  Parliaments  of  Scotland 
to  entrust  the  preparation  of  Acts  to  a  select  number  of  mem- 

«  Balcarras's  Memoirs  ;  MS.  in  the  Library  of  the  Faculty  of  Advocates. 
t  Act.  Parl.  Scot.,  March  19,  1G88-0  ;  History  of  the  late  Revolution  in  Scot- 
land, 1690. 


WILLIAM   AXD    MART.  259 

bers  tvho  were  designated  as  the  Lords  of  Articles.  In  con- 
formity with  this  usage,  the  business  of  framing  a  plan  for  the 
settling  of  the  government  was  now  confided  to  a  Committee  of 
twenty-four.  Of  the  twenty-four  eight  were  peers,  eight  repre- 
sentatives of  counties,  and- eight  representatives  of  towns.  The 
majority  of  the  Committee  were  Whigs ;  and  not  a  single  pre- 
late had  a  seat. 

The  spirit  of  the  Jacobites,  broken  by  a  succession  of  dis- 
asters, was,  about  this  time,  for  a  moment  revived  by  the  arrival 
of  the  Duke  of  Queersberry  frcm  London.  His  rank  was 
high  :  his  influence  was  great  :  his  character,  by  comparison 
with  the  characters  of  those  who  surrounded  him,  was  fair. 
When  Popery  was  in  the  ascendent,  lie  had  been  true  to  the 
cause  of  the  Protestant  Church  ;  and,  since  Whiggism  had  been 
in  the  ascendent,  he  had  been  true  to  the  cause  of  hereditary 
monarchy.  Some  thought  that,  if  he  had  been  earlier  in  his 
place  he  might  have  been  able  to  render  important  service  to  the 
House  of  Stuart.*  Even  now  the  stimulants  which  he  applied 
to  his  torpid  and  feeble  party  produced  some  faint  symptoms 
of  returning  animation.  Means  were  found  of  communicating 
with  Gordon  ;  and  he  was  earnestly  solicited  to  fire  on  the  city. 
The  Jacobites  hoped  that,  as  soon  as  the  cannon  balls  had 
beaten  down  a  few  chimneys,  the  Estates  would  adjourn  to 
Glasgow.  Time  would  thus  be  gained  ;  and  the  royalists  might 
be  able  to  execute  their  old  project  of  meeting  in  a  separate 
convention.  Gordon  however  positively  refused  to  take  on 
himself  so  grave  a  responsibility  on  no  better  warrant  than  the 
request  of  a  small  cabal. f 

By  this  time  the  Estates  had  a  guard  on  which  they  could 
rely  more  firmly  than  on  the  undisciplined  and  turbulent  Cov- 
enanters of  the  West.  A  squadron  of  English  men  of  war  from 
the  Thames  had  arrived  in  the  Frith  of  Forth.  On  board 
were  the  three  Scottish  regiments  which  had  accompanied 
William  from  Holland.  He  had,  with  great  judgment,  selected 
them  to  protect  the  assembly  which  was  to  settle  the  govern- 
ment of  their  country  ;  and,  that  no  cause  of  jealousy  might  be 
*  Balcarras.  t  Ibid. 


260  HISTORY   OP   ENGLAND. 

given  to  a  people  exquisitely  sensitive  on  points  of  national 
honour,  he  had  purged  the  ranks  of  all  Dutch  soldiers,  and  had 
thus  reduced  the  number  of  men  to  about  eleven  hundred. 
This  little  force  was  commanded  by  Hugh  Mackay,  a  Highlander 
of  noble  descent,  who  had  long  served  on  the  Continent,  and 
who  was  distinguished  by  courage  of  the  truest  temper,  and  by 
a  piety  such  as  is  seldom  found  in  soldiers  of  fortune.  The 
Convention  passed  a  resolution  appointing  Mackay  general  of 
their  forces.  When  the  question  was  put  on  this  resolution, 
the  Archbishop  of  Glasgow,  unwilling  doubtless  to  be  a  party 
to  such  an  usurpation  of  powers  which  belonged  to  the  King 
alone,  begged  that  the  prelates  might  be  excused  from  voting. 
Divines,  he  said,  had  nothing  to  do  with  military  arrangements. 
"  The  Fathers  of  the  Church,"  answered  a  member  very  keenly, 
"  have  been  lately  favoured  with  a  new  light.  I  have  myself 
seen  military  orders  signed  by  the  Most  Reverend  person  who 
has  suddenly  become  so  scrupulous.  There  was  indeed  one  dif- 
ference :  those  orders  were  for  dragooning  Protestants  ;  and  the 
resolution  before  us  is  meant  to  protect  us  from  Papists."* 

The  arrival  of  Mackay's  troops,  and  the  determination  of 
Gordon  to  remain  inactive,  quelled  the  spirit  of  the  Jacobites. 
They  had  indeed  one  chance  left.  They  might  possibly,  by 
joining  with  those  Whigs  who  were  -bent  on  an  union  with 
England,  have  postponed  during  a  considerable  time  the  settle- 
ment of  the  government.  A  negotiation  was  actually  opened 
with  this  view,  but  was  speedily  broken  off.  For  it  soon  ap- 
peared that  the  party  which  was  for  James  was  really  hostile  to 
the  union,  and  that  the  party  which  was  for  the  union  was  really 
hostile  to  James.  As  these  two  parties  had  no  object  in  common, 
the  only  effect  of  a  coalition  between  them  must  have  been  that 
one  of  them  would  have  become  the  tool  of  the  other.  The 
question  of  the  union  therefore  was  not  raised,  f  Some  Jacobites 
retired  to  their  country  seats  :  others,  though  they  remained 
at  Edinburgh,  ceased  to  show  themselves  in  the  Parliament 
House  :  many  passed  over  to  the  winning  side  ;  and,  when  at 

*  Act.  Parl.  Scot. ;  History  of  the  late  Revolution,  1G90  ;  Memoirs  of  North 
Britain,  1715.  t  Balcarras. 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  261 

length  the  resolutions  prepared  by  the  Twenty  Four  were  sub- 
mitted to  the  Convention,  it  appeared  that  the  great  body  which 
on  the  first  day  of  the  session  had  rallied  round  Athol  had 
dwindled  away  to  nothing. 

The  resolutions  had  been  framed,  as  far  as  possible,  in  con- 
formity with  the  example  recently  set  at  Westminster.  In  one 
important  point,  however,  it  was  absolutely  necessary  that  the 
copy  should  deviate  from  the  original.  The  Estates  of  England 
had  brought  two  charges  against  James,  his  misgovernment  and 
his  flight,  and  had,  by  using  the  soft  word  "  Abdication,"  evaded, 
with  some  sacrifice  of  verbal  precision,  the  question  whether 
subjects  may  lawfully  depose  a  bad  prince.  That  question  the  Es- 
tates of  Scotland  could  not  evade.  They  could  not  pretend  that 
James  had  deserted  his  post.  For  he  had  never,  since  he  came 
to  the  throne,  resided  in  Scotland.  During  many  years  that 
kingdom  had  been  ruled  by  sovereigns  who  dwelt  in  another 
land.  The  whole  machinery  of  the  administration  had  been 
constructed  on  the  supposition  that  the  king  would  be  absent, 
and  was  therefore  not  necessarily  deranged  by  that  flight  which 
had,  in  the  south  of  the  island,  dissolved  all  government,  and 
suspended  the  ordinary  course  of  justice.  It  was  only  by  letter 
that  the  King  could,  when  he  was  at  Whitehall,  communicate 
with  the  Council  and  the  Parliament  at  Edinburgh  ;  and  by 
letter  he  could  communicate  with  them  when  he  was  at  Saint 
Germains  or  at  Dublin.  The  Twenty  Four  were  therefore 
forced  to  propose  to  the  Estates  a  resolution  distinctly  declaring 
that  James  the  Seventh  had  by  his  misconduct  forfeited  the 
crown.  Many  writers  have  inferred  from  the  language  of  this 
resolution  that  sound  political  principles  had  made  a  greater 
progress  in  Scotland  than  in  Englaud.  But  the  whole  history 
of  the  two  countries  from  the  Restoration  to  the  Union  proves 
this  inference  to  be  erroneous.  The  Scottish  Estates  used  plain 
language,  simply  because  it  was  impossible  for  them,  situated  as 
they  were,  to  use  evasive  language. 

The  person  who  bore  the  chief  part  in  framing  the  resolu- 
tion, and  in  defending  it,  was  Sir  John  Dalrymple,  who  had 
recently  held  the  high  office  of  Lord  Advocate,  and  had  been 


262  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

an  accomplice  in  some  of  the  misdeeds  which  he  now  arraigned 
with  great  force  of  reasoning  and  eloquence.  He  was  strenu- 
ously supported  by  Sir  James  Montgomery,  member  for  Ayr- 
shire, a  man  of  considerable  abilities,  but  of  loose  principles, 
turbulent  temper,  insatiable  cupidity,  and  implacable  malevo- 
lence. The  Archbishop  of  Glasgow  and  Sir  George  Mackenzie 
spoke  on  the  other  side :  but  the  only  effect  of  their  oratory 
was  to  deprive  their  party  of  the  advantage  of  being  able  to 
allege  that  the  Estates  were  •  under  duress,  and  that  liberty  of 
speech  had  been  denied  to  the  defenders  of  hereditary  mon- 
archy. 

When  the  question  was  put,  Athol,  Queensberry,  and  some 
of  their  friends  withdrew.  Only  five  members  voted  against 
the  resolution  which  pronounced  that  James  had  forfeited  his 
right  to  the  allegiance  of  his  subjects.  When  it  was  moved 
that  the  Crown  of  Scotland  should  be  settled  as  the  Crown  of 
England  had  been  settled,  Athol  and  Queensberry  reappeared 
in  the  hall.  They  had  doubted,  they  said,  whether  they  could 
justifiably  declare  the  throne  vacant.  But,  since  it  had  been 
declared  vacant,  they  felt  no  doubt  that  William  and  Mary  were 
the  persons  who  ought  to  fill  it. 

The  Convention  then  went  forth  in  procession  to  the  High 
Street.  Several  great  nobles,  attended  by  the  Lord  Provost 
of  the  capital  and  by  the  heralds,  ascended  the  octagon  tower 
from  which  rose  the  city  cross  surmounted  by  the  unicorn  of 
Scotland.*  Hamilton  read  the  vote  of  the  Convention ;  and  a 
King  at  Arms  proclaimed  the  new  Sovereigns  with  sound  of 
trumpet.  On  the  same  day  the  Estates  issued  an  order  that 
the  parochial  clergy  should,  on  pain  of  deprivation,  publish 
from  their  pulpits  the  proclamation  which  had  just  been  read 
at  the  city  cross,  and  should  pray  for  King  William  and  Queen 
Mary. 

Still  the  interregnum  was  not  at  an  end.  Though  the  new 
Sovereigns  had  been  proclaimed,  they  had  not  yet  been  put 

*  Every  reader  will  remember  the  malediction  which  Sir  Walter  Scott,  in  the 
Fifth  Canto  of  Marmion,  pronounced  on  the  dunces  who  removed  this  interest- 
ing monument. 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  263 

into  possession  of  the  royal  authority  by  a  formal  tender  and 
a  formal  acceptance.  At  Edinburgh,  as  at  Westminster,  it  was 
thought  necessary  that  the  instrument  which  settled  the  govern- 
ment should  clearly  define  and  solemnly  assert  those  privileges 
of  the  people  which  the  Stuarts  had  illegally  infringed.  A 
Claim  of  Right  was  therefore  drawn  up  by  the  Twenty  Four, 
and  adopted  by  the  Convention.  To  this  claim,  which  purport- 
ed to  be  merely  declaratory  of  the  law  as  it  stood,  was  added  a 
supplementary  paper  containing  a  list  of  grievances  which  could 
be  remedied  only  by  new  laws.  One  most  important  article 
which  we  should  naturally  expect  to  find  at  the  head  of  such  a 
list,  the  Convention  with  great  practical  prudence,  but  in  defi- 
ance of  notorious  facts  and  of  unanswerable  arguments,  placed 
in  the  Claim  of  Right.  Nobody  could  deny  that  prelacy  was 
established  by  Act  of  Parliament.  The  power  exercised  by  the 
Bishops  might  be  pernicious,  unscriptural,  antichristian  :  but  il- 
legal it  certainly  was  not ;  and  to  pronounce  it  illegal  was  to 
outrage  common  sense.  The  Whig  leaders  however  were  much 
more  desirous  to  get  rid  of  episcopacy  than  to  prove  themselves 
consummate  publicists  and  logicians.  If  they  made  the  aboli- 
tion of  episcopacy  an  article  of  the  contract  by  which  William 
was  to  hold  the  crown,  they  attained  their  end,  though  doubtless 
in  a  manner  open  to  much  criticism.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  they 
contented  themselves  with  resolving  that  episcopacy  was  a  noxious 
institution  which  at  some  future  time  the  legislature  would  do 
well  to  abolish,  they  might  find  that  their  resolution,  though  un- 
objectionable in  form,  was  barren  of  consequences.  They  knew 
that  William  by'no  means  sympathised  with  their  dislike  of 
Bishops,  and  that,  even  had  he  been  much  more  zealous  for  the 
Calvinistic  model  than  he  was,  the  relation  in  which  he  stood  to 
the  Anglican  Church  would  make  it  difficult  and  dangerous  for 
him  to  declare  himself  hostile  to  a  fundamental  part  of  the 
constitution  of  that  Church.  If  he  should  become  King  of 
Scotland  without  being  fettered  by  any  pledge  on  this  subject, 
it  might  well  be  apprehended  that  he  would  hesitate  about  pass- 
ing un  Act  which  would  be  regarded  with  abhorrence  by  a 
large  body  of  his  subjects  in  the  south  of  the  island.  It  was 


264  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

therefore  most  desirable  that  the  question  should  be  settled  while 
the  throne  was  still  vacant.  In  this  opinion  many  politicians 
concurred,  who  had  no  dislike  to  rochets  and  mitres,  but  who 
wished  that  William  might  have  a  quiet  and  prosperous  reign. 
The  Scottish  people, — so  these  men  reasoned, — hated  episcopacy. 
The  English  loved  it.  To  leave  William  any  voice  in  the  mat- 
ter was  to  put  him  under  the  necessity  of  deeply  wounding  the 
strongest  feelings  of  one  of  the  nations  which  he  governed.  It 
was  therefore  plainly  for  his  own  interest  that  the  question, 
which  he  could  not  settle  in  any  manner  without  incurring  a 
fearful  amount  of  obloquy,  should  be  settled  for  him  by  others 
who  were  exposed  to  no  such  danger.  He  was  not  yet  Sover- 
eign of  Scotland.  While  the  interregnum  lasted,  the  supreme 
power  belonged  to  the  Estates  ;  and  for  what  the  Estates  might 
do  the  prelatists  of  his  southern  kingdom  could  not  hold  him 
responsible.  The  elder  Dalrymple  wrote  strongly  from  London 
to  this  effect ;  and  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  he  expressed 
the  sentiments  of  his  master.  William  would  have  sincerely 
rejoiced  if  the  Scots  could  have  been  reconciled  to  a  modified 
episcopacy.  But,  since  that  could  not  be,  it  was  manifestly  de- 
sirable that  they  should  themselves,  while  there  was  yet  no  King 
over  them,  pronounce  the  irrevocable  doom  of  the  institution 
which  they  abhorred.* 

The  Convention,  therefore,  with  little  debate  as  it  should 
seem,  inserted  in  the  Claim  of  Right  a  clause  declaring  that  pre- 
lacy was  an  insupportable  burden  to  the  kingdom,  that  it  had 
been  long  odious  to  the  body  of  the  people,  and  that  it  ought  to 
be  abolished. 

Nothing  in  the  proceedings  at  Edinburgh  astonishes  an  Eng- 
lishman more  than  the  manner  in  which  the  Estates  dealt  with 
the  practice  of  torture.  In  England  torture  had  always  been  il- 
legal. In  the  most  servile  times  the  judges  had  unanimously 
pronounced  it  so.  Those  rulers  who  had  occasionally  resorted 
to  it  had,  as  far  as  was  possible,  used  it  in  secret,  had  never  pre- 

• 

*  "  It  will  be  neither  secuir  nor  kynd  to  the  King  to  expect  it  be  (by)  Act  of 
Parliament  after  the  setlement,  which  will  lay  it  at  hifl  door."  Dalrymple  to 
Melville,  5  April,  1689  ;  Leveu  and  Melville  Papers. 


WILLIAM   AND    MAUY.  2G5 

tended  that  they  had  acted  in  conformity  with  either  statute  law 
or  common  law,  and  had  excused  themselves  by  saying  that  the 
extraordinary  peril  to  which  the  state  was  exposed  had  forced 
them  to  take  on  themselves  the  responsibility  of  employing  ex- 
traordinary means  of  defence.  It  had  therefore  never  been 
thought  necessary  by  any  English  Parliament  to  pass  any  Act 
or  resolution  touching  this  matter.  The  torture  was  not  men- 
tioned in  the  Petition  of  Right,  or  in  any  of  the  statutes  framed 
by  the  Long  Parliament.  No  member  of  the  Convention  of 
1689  dreamed  of  proposing  that  the  instrument  which  called  the 
Prince  and  Princess  of  Orange  to  the  throne  should  contain  a 
declaration  against  the  using  of  racks  and  thumbscrews  for  the 
purpose  of  forcing  prisoners  to  accuse  themselves.  Such  a  dec- 
laration would  have  been  justly  regarded  as  weakening  rather 
than  strengthening  a  rule  which,  as  far  back  as  the  days  of  the 
Plantagenets,  had  been  proudly  declared  by  the  most  illustrious 
sages  of  Westminster  Hall  to  be  a  distinguishing  feature  of  the 
English  jurisprudence.*  In  the  Scottish  Claim  of  Right,  the 
use  of  torture  without  evidence,  or  in  ordinary  cases,  was  de- 
clared to  be  contrary  to  law.  The  use  of  torture,  therefore,  where 
there  was  strong  evidence,  and  where  the  crime  was  extraordi- 
nary, was,  by  the  plainest  implication,  declared  to  be  according 
to  law  ;  nor  did  the  Estates  mention  the  use  of  torture  among 
the  grievances  which  required  a  legislative  remedy.  In  truth, 
they  could  not  condemn  the  use  of  torture  without  condemning 
themselves.  It  had  chanced  that  while  they  were  employed  in 
settling  the  government,  the  eloquent  and  learned  Lord  Presi- 
dent Lockhart  had  been  foully  murdered  in  a  public  street 
through  which  he  was  returning  from  church  on  a  Sunday.  The 
murderer  was  seized,  and  proved  to  be  a  wretch  who,  having 
treated  his  wife  barbarously  and  turned  her  out  of  doors,  had 
been  compelled  by  a  decree  of  the  Court  of  Session  to  provide 
for  her.  A  savage  hatred  of  the  Judges  by  whom  she  had  been 
protected  had  taken  possession  of  his  mind,  and  had  goaded  him 
to  a  horrible  crime  and  a  horrible  fate.  It  was  natural  that  an 
assassination  attended  by  so  many  circumstances  of  aggravation 

*  There  is  a  striking  passage  on  this  subject  in  Fortescue. 


266  HISTORY   OP    ENGLAND. 

should  move  the  indignation  of  the  members  of  the  Convention. 
Yet  they  should  have  considered  the  gravity  of  the  conjuncture 
and  the  importance  of  their  own  mission.  They  unfortunately, 
in  the  heat  of  passion,  directed  the  magistrates  of  Edinburgh  to 
strike  the  prisoner  in  the  boots,  and  named  a  Committee  to 
superintend  the  operation.  But  for  this  unhappy  event,  it  is 
probable  that  the  law  of  Scotland  concerning  torture  would  have 
been  immediately  assimilated  to  the  law  of  England.* 

Having  settled  the  Claim  of  Right,  the  Convention  proceeded 
to  revise  the  Coronation  oath.  When  this  had  been  done,  three 
members  were  appointed  to  carry  the  Instrument  of  Government 
to  London.  Argyle,  though  not,  in  strictness  of  law,  a  Peer, 
was  chosen  to  represent  the  Peers  :  Sir  James  Montgomery  rep- 
resented the  Commissioners  of  Shires,  and  Sir  John  Dalrymple 
the  Commissioners  of  Towns. 

The  Estates  then  adjourned  for  a  few  weeks,  having  first 
passed  a  vote  which  empowered  Hamilton  to  take  such  measures 
as  might  be  necessary  for  the  preservation  of  the  public  peace 
till  the  end  of  the  interregnum. 

The  ceremony  of  the  inauguration  was  distinguished  from 
ordinary  pageants  by  some  highly  interesting  circumstances.  On 
the  eleventh  of  May  the  three  Commissioners  came  to  the  Coun- 
cil Chamber  at  Whitehall,  and  thence,  attended  by  almost  all 
the  Scotchmen  of  note  who  were  then  in  London,  proceeded  to 
the  Banqueting  House.  There  William  and  Mary  appeared 
seated  under  a  canopy.  A  splendid  circle  of  English  nobles  and 
statesmen  stood  round  the  throne:  but  the  sword  of  state  was 
committed  to  a  Scotch  Lord ;  and  the  oath  of  office  was  admin- 
istered after  the  Scotch  fashion.  Argyle  recited  the  words 
slowly.  The  royal  pair,  holding  up  their  hands  towards  heaven, 
repeated  after  him  till  they  came  to  the  last  clause.  There  Wil- 
liam paused.  That  clause  contained  a  promise  that  he  would 
root  out  all  heretics  and  all  enemies  of  the  true  worship  of  God  ; 
and  it  was  notorious  that,  in  the  opinion  of  many  Scotchmen, 
not  only  all  Roman  Catholics,  but  all  Protestant  Episcopalians, 

*  Act.  Parl.  Scot.,  April  1, 1G89 ;  Orders  of  Committee  of  Estates,  May  16, 1689; 
London  Gazette,  April  11. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  267 

all  Independents,  Baptists,  and  Quakers,  all  Lutherans,  nay  all 
British  Presbyterians  who  did  not  hold  themselves  bound  by  the 
Solemn  League  and  Covenant,  were  enemies  of  the  true  wor- 
ship of  God.*  The  King  had  apprised  the  Commissioners  that 
he  could  not  take  this  part  of  the  oath  without  a  distinct  and 
public  explanation ;  and  they  had  been  authorised  by  the  Con- 
vention to  give  such  an  explanation  as  would  satisfy  him.  "  I 
will  not,"  he  now  said,  ''lay  myself  under  any  obligation  to  be 
a  persecutor."  "  Neither  the  words  of  this  oath,"  said  one  of 
the  Commissioners,  "  nor  the  laws  of  Scotland,  lay  any  such 
obligation  on  Your  Majesty."  "  In  that  sense,  then,  I  swear," 
said  William ;  "  and  I  desire  you  all,  my  lords  and  gentlemen, 
to  witness  that  I  do  so."  Even  his  detractors  have  generally 
admitted  that  on  this  great  occasion  he  acted  with  uprightness, 
dignity,  and  wisdom.f 

As  King  of  Scotland,  he  soon  found  himself  embarrassed  at 
every  step  by  all  the  difficulties  which  had  embarrassed  him  as 
King  of  England,  and  by  other  difficulties  which  in  England 
were  happily  unknown.  In  the  north  of  the  island,  no  class 
was  more  dissatisfied  with  the  Revolution  than  the  class  which 
owed  most  to  the  Revolution.  The  manner  in  which  the  Con- 

*  As  it  has  lately  been  denied  that  the  extreme  Presbyterians  entertained  an 
unfavourable  opinion  of  the  Lutherans,  I  will  give  two  decisive  proofs  of  the 
truth  of  what  I  have  asserted  in  the  text.  In  the  book  entitled  Faithful  Con- 
tendings  Displayed  is  a  report  of  what  passed  at  the  General  Meeting  of  the 
United  Societies  of  Covenanters  on  the  24th  of  October  1688.  The  question  was 
propounded  whether  there  should  be  an  association  with  the*  Dutch.  "  It  was 
concluded  unanimously,"  says  the  Clerk  of  the  Societies,  "  that  we  could  not 
have  an  association  with  the  Dutch  in  one  body,  nor  come  formally  under  their 
conduct,  being  such  a  promiscuous  conjunction  of  reformed  Lutheran  malignants 
and  sectaries,  to  join  with  whom  were  repugnant  to  the  testimony  of  the  Church 
of  Scotland."  In  the  Protestation  and  Testimony  drawn  up  on  the  2d  of  Octo- 
ber 1707,  the  United  Societies  complain  that  the  crown  has  been  settled  on  "  the 
Prince  of  Hanover,  who  has  been  bred  and  brought  up  in  the  Lutheran  religion, 
which  is  not  only  different  from,  but  even  in  manv  things  contrary  unto  that 
purity  in  doctrine,  reformation,  and  relitrion,  we  in  these  nations  had  attained 
unto,  as  is  very  well  known."  They  add  :  "  The  admitting  such  a  person  to  reign 
over  us  is  not  only  contrary  to  our  Solemn  League  and  Covenant,  but  to  the  very 
"Word  of  God  Itself,  Dent,  xvii." 

t  History  of  the  late  revolution  in  Scotland  ;  London  Gazette,  May  16, 1689. 
The  official  account  of  what  passed  was  evidently  drawn  up  with  great  care.  See 
also  the  Royal  Diary,  1702.  The  writer  of  this  work  professes  to  have  derived 
his  information  from  a  divine  who  was.  present. 


268  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

vention  had  decided  the  question  of  ecclesiastical  polity  had  not 
been  more  offensive  to  the  Bishops  themselves  than  to  those 
fiery  Covenanters  who  had  long,  in  defiance  of  sword  and  car- 
bine, boot  and  gibbet,  worshipped  their  Maker  after  their  own 
fashion  in  caverns  and  on  mountain  tops.  Was  there  ever,  these 
zealots  exclaimed,  such  a  halting  between  two  opinions,  such  a 
compromise  between  the  Lord  and  Baal  ?  The  Estates  ought  to 
have  said  that  episcopacy  was  an  abomination  in  God's  sight, 
and  that,  in  obedience  to  his  word,  and  from  fear  of  his  righteous 
judgment,  they  were  determined  to  deal  with  this  great  national 
sin  and  scandal  after  the  fashion  of  those  saintly  rulers  who  of 
old  cut  down  the  groves  and  demolished  the  altars  of  Chemosh 
and  Astarte.  Unhappily,  Scotland  was  ruled,  not  by  pious  Jo- 
siahs,  but  by  careless  Gallios.  The  antichristian  hierarchy  was 
to  be  abolished,  not  because  it  was  an  insult  to  heaven,  but  be- 
cause it  was  felt  as  a  burden  on  earth  ;  not  because  it  was  hate- 
ful to  the  great  Head  of  the  Church,  but  because  it  was  hateful 
to  the  people.  Was  public  opinion,  then,  the  test  of  right  and 
wrong  in  religion  ?  Was  not  the  order  which  Christ  had  estab- 
lished in  his  own  house  to  be  held  equally  sacred  in  all  countries 
and  through  all  ages  ?  And  was  there  no  reason  for  following 
that  order  in  Scotland,  except  a  reason  which  might  be  urged 
with  equal  force  for  maintaining  Prelacy  in  England,  Popery 
in  Spain,  and  Mahometanism  in  Turkey  ?  Why,  too,  was  noth- 
ing said  of  those  Covenants  which  the  -nation  had  so  generally 
subscribed  and  so  generally  violated  ?  Why  was  it  not  distinctly 
affirmed  that  the  promises  set  down  in  those  rolls  were  still  bind- 
ing, and  would  to  the  end  of  time  be  binding,  on  the  kingdom  ? 
Were  these  truths  to  be  suppressed  from  regard  for  the  feelings 
and  interests  of  a  prince  who  was  all  things  to  all  men,  an  ally 
of  the  idolatrous  Spaniard  and  of  the  Lutheran  Dane,  a  presby- 
terian  at  the  Hague  and  a  prelatist  at  Whitehall  ?  He,  like  Jehu 
in  ancient  times,  had  doubtless  so  far  done  well  that  he  had  been 
the  scourge  of  the  idolatrous  House  of  Ahab.  But  he,  like  Jehu, 
had  not  taken  heed  to  walk  in  the  divine  law  with  his  whole 
heart,  but  had  tolerated  and  practised  impieties  differing  only  in 
degree  from  those  of  which  he  had  declared  himself  the  enemy. 


MTILLIAM    AND    MART.  269 

It  would  have  better  become  godly  senators  to  remonstrate  with 
him  on  the  sin  which  he  was  committing  by  conforming  to  the 
Anglican  ritual,  and  by  maintaining  the  Anglican  Church  gov- 
ernment, than  to  flatter  him  by  using  a  phraseology  which 
seemed  to  indicate  that  they  were  as  deeply  tainted  with  Eras- 
tiauism  as  himself.  Many  of  those  who  held  this  language  re- 
fused to  do  any  act  which  could  be  construed  into  a  recognition 
of  the  new  Sovereigns,  and  would  rather  have  been  fired  upon 
by  files  of  musketeers,  or  tied  to  stakes  within  low  water  mark, 
than  have  uttered  a  prayer  that  God  would  bless  William  and 
Mary. 

Yet  the  King  had  less  to  fear  from  the  pertinacious  adher- 
ence of  these  men  to  their  absurd  principles  than  from  the 
ambition  and  avarice  of  another  set  of  men  who  had  no  princi- 
ples at  all.  It  was  necessary  that  he  should  immediately  name 
ministers  to  conduct  the  government  of  Scotland  ;  and,  name 
whom  he  might,  he  could  not  fail  to  disappoint  and  irritate  a 
multitude  of  expectants.  Scotland  was  one  of  the  least  wealthy 
countries  in  Europe ;  yet  no  country  in  Europe  contained  a 
greater  number  of  clever  and  selfish  politicians.  The  places  in 
the  gift  of  the  Crown  were  not  enough  to  satisfy  one  twentieth 
part  of  the  placehunters,  every  one  of  whom  thought  that  his 
own  services  had  been  preeminent,  and  that  whoever  might  be 
passed  by,  he  ought  to  be  remembered.  William  did  his  best 
to  satisfy  these  innumerable  and  insatiable  claimants  by  putting 
many  offices  into  commission.  There  were  however  a  few 
great  posts  which  it  was  impossible  to  divide.  Hamilton  was 
declared  Lord  High  Commissioner,  iu  the  hope  that  immense 
pecuniary  allowances,  a  residence  in  Holyrood  Palace,  and  a 
pomp  and  dignity  little  less  than  regal,  would  content  him. 
The  Earl  of  Crawford  was  appointed  President  of  the  Parlia- 
ment ;  and  it  was  supposed  that  this  appointment  would  con- 
ciliate the  rigid  Presbyterians :  for  Crawford  was  what  they 
called  a  professor.  His  letters  and  speeches  are,  to  use  his  own 
phraseology,  exceeding  savoury.  Alone,  or  almost  alone,  among 
the  prominent  politicians  of  that  time,  he  retained  the  style 
which  had  been  fashionable  in  the  preceding  generation.  He 


270  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

Lad  a  text  from  the  Pentateuch  or  the  Prophets  ready  for 
every  occasion.  He  filled  his  despatches  with  allusions  to 
Ishmael  and  Hagar,  Hannah  and  Eli,  Elijah,  Nehemiah,  and 
Zerubbabel,  and  adorned  his  oratory  with  quotations  from  Ezra 
and  Haggai.  It  is  a  circumstance  strikingly  characteristic  of 
the  man,  and  of  the  school  in  which  he  had  been  trained,  that, 
in  all  the  mass  of  his  writing  which  has  come  clown  to  us,  there 
is  not  a  single  word  indicating  that  he  had  ever  in  his  life  heard 
of  the  New  Testament.  Even  in  our  own  time  some  persons 
of  a  peculiar  taste  have  been  so  much  delighted  by  the  rich 
unction  of  his  eloquence,  that  they  have  confidently  pronounced 
him  a  saint.  To  those  whose  habit  is  to  judge  of  a  man  rather 
by  his  actions  than  by  his  words,  Crawford  will  appear  to  have 
been  a  selfish,  cruel,  politician,  who  was  not  at  all  the  dupe  of 
his  own  cant,  and  whose  zeal  against  episcopal  government  was 
not  a  little  whetted  by  his  desire  to  obtain  a  grant  of  Episcopal 
domains.  In  excuse  for  his  greediness,  it  ought  to  be  said  that 
he  was  the  poorest  noble  of  a  poor  nobility,  and  that  before  the 
Revolution  he  was  sometimes  at  a  loss  for  a  meal  and  a  suit  of 
clothes.* 

The  ablest  of  Scottish  politicians  and  debaters,  Sir  John 
Dairy mple,  was  appointed  Lord  Advocate.  His  father,  Sir 
James,  the  greatest  of  Scottish  jurists,  was  placed  at  the  head 
of  the  Court  of  Session.  Sir  William  Lockhart,  a  man  whose 
letters  prove  him  to  have  possessed  considerable  ability,  became 
Solicitor  General. 

Sir  James  Montgomery  had  flattered  himself  that  he  should 

*  See  Crawford's  Lettars  and  Speeches,  passim.  His  style  of  begging  for  a 
place  was  peculiar.  After  owning,  not  without  reason,  that  his  heart  was  deceit- 
ful and  desperately  wicked,  he  proceeded  thus  :  "  The  same  Omnipotent  Being 
who  hath  said,  when  the  poor  and  needy  seek  water  and  there  is  none,  and  their 
tongue  faileth  for  thirst,  he  will  not  forsake  them,  notwithstanding  of  my  pres- 
ent low  condition,  can  build  me  a  house  if  He  think  fit."— Letter  to  Melville,  of 
May  28,  1089.  As  to  Crawford's  poverty  and  his  passion  for  Bishops'  lands, 
see  his  letter  to  Melville  of  the  4th  of  December  1690.  As  to  his  humanity,  see 
his  letter  to  Melville,  Dec.  11,  1690.  All  these  letters  are  among  the  Leven  and 
Melville  Papers.  The  author  of  An  Account  of  the  Late  Establishment  of  Pres- 
byterian Government  says  of  a  person  who  had  taken  a  bribe  of  ten  or  twelve 
pounds,  "  Had  he  been  as  poor  as  my  Lord  Crawford,  perhaps  he  had  been  the 
more  excusable."  See  also  the  dedication  of  the  celebrated  tract  entitled  Scotch 
Presbyterian  Eloquence  Displayed. 


"WILLIAM    AXD    MART.  271 

he  the  chief  minister.  lie  had  distinguished  himself  highly  in 
the  Convention.  He  had  been  one  of  the  Commissioners  who 
had  tendered  the  Crown  and  administered  the  oath  to  the  new 
Sovereigns.  In  parliamentary  ability  and  eloquence  he  had  no 
superior  among  his  countrymen,  except  the  new  Lord  Advocate. 
The  Secretaryship  was,  not  indeed  in  dignity,  but  in  real  power, 
the  highest  office  in  the  Scottish  government ;  and  this  office 
was  the  reward  to  which  Montgomery  thought  himself  entitled. 
But  the  Episcopalians  and  the  moderate  Presbyterians  dreaded 
him  as  a  man  of  extreme  opinions  and  of  bitter  spirit.  He  had 
been  a  chief  of  the  Covenanters  :  he  had  been  prosecuted  at  one 
time  for  holding  conventicles,  and  at  another  time  for  harbour- 
ing rebels :  he  had  been  fined  :  he  had  been  imprisoned :  he 
had  been  almost  driven  to  take  refuge  from  his  enemies  beyond 
the  Atlantic  in  the  infant  settlement  of  New  Jersey.  It  was 
apprehended  that,  if  he  were  now  armed  with  the  whole  power 
of  the  Crown  he  would  exact  a  terrible  retribution  for  what  he 
had  suffered.*  William  therefore  preferred  Melville,  who, 
though  not  a  man  of  eminent  talents,  was  regarded  by  the  Pres- 
byterians as  a  thoroughgoing  friend,  and  yet  not  regarded  by 
the  Episcopalians  as  an  implacable  enemy.  Melville  fixed  his 
residence  at  the  English  Court,  and  became  the  regular  organ 
of  communication  between  Kensington  and  the  authorities  at 
Edinburgh. 

"William  had,  however,  one  Scottish  adviser  who  deserved 
and  possessed"  more  influence  than  any  of  the  ostensible  minis- 
ters. This  was  Carstairs,  one  of  the  most  remarkable  men  of 
that  age.  He  united  great  scholastic  attainments  with  great 
aptitude  for  civil  business,  and  the  firm  faith  and  ardent  zeal  of 
a  martyr  with  the  shrewdness  and  suppleness  of  a  consummate 
politician.  In  courage  and  fidelity  he  resembled  Burnet ;  but  he 
had,  what  Burnet  wanted,  judgment,  selfcommand,  and  a  sin- 
gular power  of  keeping  secrets.  There  was  no  post  to  which 
he  might  not  have  aspired  if  he  had  been  a  layman,  or  a  priest 

*  Burnet,  ii.  23,  21  ;  Fountainhall  Papers,  13  Aug.  1G84,  14  and  15  Oct.  1684, 
3  May  1G85  ;  Montgomery  to  Melville,  June  i!3,  1689,  in  the  Leven  and  Melville 
Papers  ;  Pretences  of  the  French  Invasion  Examined,  licensed  May  25, 1602. 


272  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

of  the  Church  of  Erigland.  But  a  Presbyterian  clergyman 
could  not  hope  to  attain  any  high  dignity  either  in  the  north  or 
in  the  south  of  the  island.  Carstairs  was  forced  to  content 
himself  with  the  substance  of  power,  and  to  leave  the  semblance 
to  other.  He  was  named  Chaplain  to  Their  Majesties  for 
Scotland :  but  wherever  the  King  was,  in  England,  in  Ireland, 
in  the  Netherlands,  there  was  this  most  trusty  and  most  prudent 
of  courtiers.  He  obtained  from  the  royal  bounty  a  modest 
competence  ;  and  he  desired  no  more.  But  it  was  well  known 
that  he  could  be  as  useful  a  friend  and  as  formidable  an  enemy 
as  any  member  of  the  cabinet ;  and  he  was  designated  at  the 
public  offices  and  in  the  antechambers  of  the  palace  by  the  sig- 
nificant nickname  of  the  Cardinal.* 

To  Montgomery  was  offered  the  place  of  Lord  Justice 
Clerk.  But  that  place,  though  high  and  honourable,  he 
thought  below  his  merits  and  his  capacity ;  and  he  returned 
from  London  to  Scotland  with  a  heart  ulcerated  by  hatred  of 
his  ungrateful  master  and  of  his  successful  rivals.  At  Edin- 
burgh a  knot  of  "Whigs,  as  severely  disappointed  as  himself  by 
the  new  arrangements,  readily  submitted  to  the  guidance  of  so 
bold  and  able  a  leader.  Under  his  direction  these  men,  among 
whom  the  Earl  of  Annandale  and  Lord  Ross  were  the  most 
conspicuous,  formed  themselves  into  a  society  called  the  Club, 
appointed  a  clerk,  and  met  daily  at  a  tavern  to  concert  plans  of 
opposition.  Round  this  nucleus  soon  gathered  a  great  body  of 
greedy  and  angry  politicians. f  With  these  dishonest  malecon- 
tents,  whose  object  was  merely  to  annoy  the  government  and 
to  get  places,  were  leagued  other  malecon tents,  who,  in  the 
course  of  a  long  resistance  to  tyranny,  had  become  so  perverse 
and  irritable  that  they  were  unable  to  live  contentedly  even 
under  the  mildest  and  most  constitutional  rule.  Such  a  man 
was  Sir  Patrick  Hume.  He  had  returned  from  exile,  as  liti- 

*  See  the  life  and  correspondence  of  Carstairs,  and  the  interesting  memorials 
of  him  in  the  Caldwell  Papers,  printed  in  1854.  See  also  Mackay's  character  of 
him,  and  Swift's  note.  Swift's  word  is  not  to  be  taken  against  a  Scotchman  and 
ti  Presbyterian.  I  believe,  however,  that  Carstairs,  though  an  honest  and  pious 
man  in  essentials,  had  his  full  share  of  the  wisdom  of  the  serpent. 

t  Sit  John  Dalrymple  to  Lord  Melville,  June  18, 20,  25, 1689  ;  Leven  and  Mel- 
ville Papers. 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  273 

gions,  as  impracticable,  as  morbidly  jealous  of  all  superior  au- 
thority, and  as  fond  of  haranguing,  as  he  had  been  four  years 
before,  and  was  as  much  bent  on  making  a  merely  nominal 
Sovereign  of  William  as  he  had  formerly  been  bent  on  making 
a  merely  nominal  general  of  Argyle.*  A  man  far  superior 
morally  and  intellectually  to  Hume,  Fletcher  of  Saltoun, 
belonged  to  the  same  party.  Though  not  a  member  of  the 
Convention,  he  was  a  most  active  member  of  the  Club.f  He 
hated  monarchy  ;  he  hated  democracy  :  his  favourite  project 
was  to  make  Scotland  an  oligarchical  republic.  The  King,  if 
there  must  be  a  King,  was  to  be  a  mere  pageant.  The  lowest 
class  of  the  people  were  to  be  bondsmen.  The  whole  power, 
legislative  and  executive,  was  to  be  in  the  hands  of  the  Parlia- 
ment. In  other  words,  the  country  was  to  be  absolutely 
governed  by  a  hereditary  aristocracy,  the  most  needy,  the  most 
haughty,  and  the  most  quarrelsome  in  Europe.  Under  such  a 
polity  there  could  have  been  neither  freedom  nor  tranquillity. 
Trade,  industry,  science,  would  have  languished ;  and  Scotland 
would  have  been  a  smaller  Poland,  with  a  puppet  sovereign,  a 
turbulent  diet,  and  an  enslaved  people.  With  unsuccessful 
candidates  for  office,  and  with  honest  but  wrongheaded  republi- 
cans, were  mingled  politicians  whose  course  was  determined 
merely  by  fear.  Many  sycophants,  who  were  conscious  that 
they  had,  in  the  evil  time,  done  what  deserved  punishment, 
were  desirous  to  make  their  peace  with  the  powerful  and  vin- 
dictive Club,  and  were  glad  to  be  permitted  to  atone  for  their 
servility  to  James  by  their  opposition  to  William.^  The  great 
body  of  Jacobites  meanwhile  stood  aloof,  saw  with  delight  the 
enemies  of  the  House  of  Stuart  divided  against  one  another,  and 
indulged  the  hope  that  the  confusion  would  end  in  the  restora- 
tion of  the  banished  king.§ 

*  There  is  an  amusing  description  of  Sir  Patrick  in  the  Hyndford  MS.  written 
about  1704,  and  printed  among  the  Carstairs  Papers.  "  He  is  a  lover  of  t»t 
speeches,  and  can  hardly  give  audience  to  private  friends  without  them-" 

t  "  No  man,  though  not  a  member,  busier  than  Saltoun  " — Lockhart  to  Mel- 
ville, July  11, 1689  ;  Leven  and  Melville  Papers.  See  Fletcher's  own  works,  and 
the  descriptions  of  him  in  Lockhart's  and  Mackay's  Memoirs. 

J  Dilrymple  says,  in  a  letter  of  the  5th  of  June,  "All  the  malignants.  for 
fear,  are  come  into  the  Club  ;  and  they  all  rote  alike." 

&  Balcarras. 

VOL.  III.— 18 


274  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

While  Montgomery  was  labouring  to  form  out  of  various 
materials  a  party  which  might,  when  the  Convention  should 
reassemble  be  powerful  enough  to  dictate  to  the  throne,  an 
enemy  still  more  formidable  than  Montgomery  had  set  up  the 
standard  of  civil  war  in  a  region  about  which  the  politicians  of 
Westminster,  and  indeed  most  of  the  politicians  of  Edinburgh, 
knew  no  more  than  about  Abyssinia  or  Japan. 

It  is  not  easy  for  a  modern  Englishman,  who  can  pass  in  a 
day  from  his  club  in  Saint  James's  Street  to  his  shooting  box 
among  the  Grampians,  and  who  finds  in  his  shooting  box  all  the 
comforts  and  luxuries  of  his  club,  to  believe  that,  in  the  time  of 
his  greatgrandfathers,  Saint  James's  Street  had  as  little  connec- 
tion with  the  Grampians  as  with  the  Andes.  Yet  so  it  was.  In 
the  south  of  our  island  scarcely  any  thing  was  known  about  the 
Celtic  part  of  Scotland ;  and  what  was  known  excited  no  feel- 
ing but  contempt  and  loathing.  The  crags  and  the  glens,  the 
woods  and  the  waters,  were  indeed  the  same  that  now  swarm 
every  autumn  with  admiring  gazers  and  sketchers.  The  Trosachs 
wound  as  now  between  gigantic  walls  of  rock  tapestried  with 
broom  and  wild  roses :  Foyers  came  headlong  down  through 
the  birch  wood  with  the  same  leap  and  the  same  roar  with  which 
he  still  rushes  to  Loch  Ness  ;  and,  in  defiance  of  the  sun  of 
June,  the  snowy  scalp  of  Ben  Cruachan  rose,  as  it  still  rises, 
over  the  willowy  islets  of  Loch  Awe.  Yet  none  of  these  sights 
had  power,  till  a  recent  period,  to  attract  a  single  poet  or  painter 
from  more  opulent  and  more  tranquil  regions.  Indeed  law  and 
police,  trade  and  industry,  have  done  far  more  than  people  of 
romantic  dispositions  will  readily  admit,  to  develope  in  our 
minds  a  sense  of  the  wilder  beauties  of  nature.  A  traveller 
must  be  freed  from  all  apprehension  of  being  murdered  or 
starved  before  he  can  be  charmed  by  the  bold  outlines  and  rich 
tints  of  the  hills.  He  is  not  likely  to  be  thrown  into  ecstasies 
by  the  abruptness  of  a  precipice  from  which  he  is  in  imminent 
danger  of  falling  two  thousand  feet  perpendicular;  by  the  boil- 
ing waves  of  a  torrent  which  suddenly  whirls  away  his  baggage 
and  forces  him  to  run  for  his  life  ;  by  the  gloomy  grandeur  of  a 
pass  where  he  finds  a  corpse  which  marauders  have  just  strip- 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  275 

ped  and  mangled  ;  or  by  the  screams  of  those  eagles  whose  next 
meal  may  probably  be  on  his  own  eyes.  About  the  year  1730, 
Captain  Burt,  one  of  the  first  Englishmen  who  caught  a  glimpse 
of  the  spots  which  now  allure  tourists  from  every  part  of  the 
civilised  world,  wrote  an  account  of  his  wanderings.  He  was 
evidently  a  man  of  a  quick,  an  observant  and  a  cultivated  mind, 
and  would  doubtless,  had  he  lived  in  our  age,  have  looked  with 
mingled  awe  and  delight  on  the  mountains  of  Invernessshire. 
But,  writing  with  the  feeling  which  was  universal  in  his  own 
age,  he  pronounced  those  mountains  monstrous  excrescences. 
Their  deformity,  he  said,  was  such  that  the  most  sterile  plains 
seemed  lovely  by  comparison.  Fine  weather,  he  complained, 
only  made  bad  worse ;  for,  the  clearer  the  day,  the  more  dis- 
agreeably did  those  misshapen  masses  of  gloomy  brown  and  dirty 
purple  affect  the  eye.  What  a  contrast,  he  exclaimed,  between 
these  horrible  prospects  and  the  beauties  of  Richmond  Hill  !* 
Some  persons  may  think  that  Burt  was  a  man  of  vulgar  and 
prosaical  mind :  but  they  will  scarcely  venture  to  pass  a  sim- 
ilar judgment  on  Oliver  Goldsmith.  Goldsmith  was  one  of 
the  very  Saxons  who,  more  than  a  century  ago,  ventured  to  ex- 
plore the  Highlands.  He  was  disgusted  by  the  hideous  wil- 
derness, and  declared  that  he  greatly  preferred  the  charming 
country  round  Leyden,  the  vast  expanse  of  verdant  meadow,  and 
the  villas  with  their  statues  and  grottoes,  trim  flower  beds, 
and  rectilinear  avenues.  Yet  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  the 
author  of  the  Traveller  and  of  the  Deserted  Village  was  natur- 
ally inferior  in  taste  and  sensibility  to  the  thousands  of  clerks  and 
milliners  who  are  now  thrown  into  raptures  by  the  sight  of  Loch 
Katrine  and  Loch  Lomond.f  His  feelings  may  easily  be  ex- 

*  Captain  Burt's  Letters  from  Scotland. 

t  "Shall  I  tire  you  with  a  description  of  (his  unfruitful  country,  where  I  must 
lead  you  over  their  hills  all  brown  with  heath,  or  their  valleys  scarce  able  to 
fend  a  rabbit?  .  .  .  Every  part  of  the  country  presents  the  same  dismal  land- 
scape. No  grove  or  brook  lend  their  music  to  cheer  the  stranger." — Goldsmith 
to  Bryan  ton,  Edinburgh,  Sept.  26,  1753.  In  a  letter  written  soon  after  from  Ley- 
den  to  the  Reverend  Thomas  Contarine,  Goldsmith  says,  "  I  was  wholly  taken  up 
in  observing  the  face  of  the  country.  Nothing  can  equal  its  beauty.  Wherever 
I  turned  my  eye,  tine  houses,  elegant  gardens,  statues,  grottos,  vistas  presented 
themselves.  Scotland  and  this  country  bear  the  highest  contract :  there,  hills 
and  rocks  intercept  every  prospect ;  here  it  ia  all  a  continued  plain.'*  See  Ap- 


276  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

plained.  It  was  not  till  roads  had  been  cut  out  of  the  rocks,  till 
bridges  had  been  flung  over  the  courses  of  the  rivulets,  till  inns 
had  succeeded  to  dens  of  robbers,  till  there  was  as  little  danger 
of  being  slain  or  plundered  in  the  wildest  defile  of  Badenoch 
or  Lochaber  as  in  Cornhill,  that  strangers  could  be  enchanted  by 
the  blue  dimples  of  the  lakes  and  by  the  rainbows  which  over- 
hung the  waterfalls,  and  could  derive  a  solemn  pleasure  even 
from  the  clouds  and  tempests  which  lowered  on  the  mountain 
tops. 

The  change  in  the  feeling  with  which  the  Lowlanders  re- 
garded the  Highland  scenery  was  closely  connected  with  a 
change  not  less  remarkable  in  the  feeling  with  which  they  re- 
garded the  Highland  race.  It  is  not  strange  that  the  Wild 
Scotch,  as  they  were  sometimes  called,  should,  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  have  been  considered  by  the  Saxons  as  mere  savages. 
But  it  is  surely  strange  that,  considered  as  savages,  they  should 
not  have  been  objects  of  interest  and  curiosity.  The  English 
were  then  abundantly  inquisitive  about  the  manners  of  rude 
nations  separated  from  our  island  by  great  continents  and  oceans. 
Numerous  books  were  printed  describing  the  laws,  the  super- 
stitions, the  cabins,  the  repasts,  the  dresses,  the  marriages,  the 
funerals  of  Laplanders  and  Hottentots,  Mohawks  and  Ma- 
lays. The  plays  and  poems  of  that  age  are  full  of  allusions 
to  the  usages  of  the  Black  men  of  Africa  and  of  the  red  men 

O 

of  America.  The  only  barbarian  about  whom  there  was  no 
wish  to  have  any  information  was  the  Highlander.  Five  or  six 
years  after  the  Revolution,  an  indefatigable  angler  published  an 
account  of  Scotland.  Pie  boasted  that,  in  the  course  of  his 

pendix  C.  to  the  First  Volume  of  Mr.  Forster's  Life  of  Goldsmith.  I  will  cite  the 
testimony  of  another  man  of  genius  in  support  of  the  doctrine  propounded  in  the 
text.  No  human  heing  has  ever  had  a  finer  sense  of  the  beauties  of  naiure  than 
Gray.  No  prospect  surpasses  in  grandeur  and  loveliness  the  first  view  of  Italy 
from  Mount  Cenis.  Had  Gray  enjoyed  that  view  from  the  magnificent  road  con- 
structed iu  this  century,  he  would  undoubtedly  have  heen  in  raptures.  But  in 
his  time  the  descent  was  performed  with  extreme  inconvenience  and  with  not  a 
little  peril.  He  therefore,  instead  of  breaking  forth  into  ejaculations  of  admira- 
tion ar.J  delight,  says  most  unpoeticaily,  "  Mount  Cenis,  I  confess,  carries  the 
permission  mountains  have  of  being  frightful  rather  too  far  ;  and  its  horrors 
were  accompanied  with  too  much  danger  to  give  one  time  to  reflect  upou  their 
beauties."— Gray  to  West,  Nov.  1C,  1739. 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  277 

rambles  from  lake  to  lake,  and  from  brook  to  brook,  he  had  left 
scarcely  a  nook  of  the  kingdom  unexplored.  But  when  we  ex- 
amine his  narrative,  we  find  that  he  had  never  ventured  beyond 
the  extreme  skirts  of  the  Celtic  region.  He  tells  us  that 
even  from  the  people  who  lived  close  to  the  passes  he  could 
learn  little  or  nothing  about  the  Gaelic  population.  Few  Eng- 
lishmen, he  says,  had  ever  seen  Inverary.  All  beyond  Inver- 
arv  was  chaos.*  In  the  reign  of  George  the  First,  a  work  was 
published  which  professed  to  give  a  most  exact  account  of 
Scotland ;  and  in  this  work,  consisting  of  more  than  three 
hundred  pages,  two  contemptuous  paragraphs  were  thought 
sufficient  for  the  Highlands  and  the  Highlanders. f  We  may 
well  doubt  whether,  in  1689,  one  in  twenty  of  the  well  read 
gentlemen  who  assembled  at  Will's  coffeehouse  knew  that, 
within  the  four  seas,  and  at  the  distance  of  less  than  five  hun- 
dred miles  from  London,  were  many  miniature  courts,  in  each 
of  which  a  petty  prince,  attended  by  guards,  by  armour  bearers, 
by  musicians,  by  a  hereditary  orator,  by  a  hereditary  poet 
laureate,  kept  a  rude  state,  dispensed  a  rude  justice,  waged  wars, 
and  concluded  treaties.  While  the  old  Gaelic  institutions  were 
in  full  vigour,  no  account  of  them  was  given  by  any  observer, 
qualified  to  judge  of  them  fairly.  Had  such  an  observer  studied 
the  character  of  the  Highlanders,  he  would  doubtless  have  found 
in  it  closely  intermingled  the  good  and  the  bad  qualities  of  an 
uncivilised  nation.  He  would  have  found  that  the  people  had 
no  love  for  their  country  or  for  their  king ;  that  they  had  no 
attachment  to  any  commonwealth  larger  than  the  clan,  or  to  any 
magistrate  superior  to  the  chief.  He  would  have  found  that 
life  was  governed  by  a  code  of  morality  and  honour  widely 
different  from  that  which  is  established  in  peaceful  and  pros- 
perous societies.  He  would  have  learned  that  a  stab  in  the 

*  Northern  Memoirs,  by  R.  Franck  Philanthropus,  1694.  The  author  had 
caught  a  few  glimp.-es  of  Highland  scenery,  and  speaks  of  it  much  as  Burt  spoke 
in  the  following  genera, ion  ;  "  It  is  a  part  of  the  creation  left  undressed  ;  rub- 
bish thrown  aside  when  the  magnificent  fabric  of  the  world  was  created  ;  as  void 
of  form  as  the  natives  are  indigent  of  morals  and  good  manners." 

t  Journey  through  Scotland,  by  the  author  of  the  Journey  through  England, 
1723. 


278  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

back,  or  fi  phot  from  behind  a  fragment  of  rock,  were  approved 
modes  of  taking  satisfaction  for  insults.  He  would  have  heard 
men  relate  boastfully  how  they  or  their  fathers  had  wreaked  on 
hereditary  enemies  in  a  neighbouring  valley  such  vengeance  as 
would  have  made  old  soldiers  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War  shudder. 
He  would  have  found  that  robbery  was  held  to  be  a  calling,  not 
merely  innocent,  but  honourable.  He  would  have  seen,  wher- 
ever he  turned,  that  dislike  of  steady  industry,  and  that  disposi- 
tion to  throw  on  the  weaker  sex  the  heaviest  part  of  manual 
labour,  which  are  characteristic  of  savages.  He  would  have 
been  struck  by  the  spectacle  of  athletic  men  basking  in  the  sun, 
angling  for  salmon,  or  taking  aim  at  grouse,  while  their  aged 
mothers,  their  pregnant  wives,  their  tender  daughters,  were 
reaping  the  scanty  harvest  of  oats.  Nor  did  the  women  repine 
at  their  hard  lot.  In  their  view  it  was  quite  fit  that  a  man, 
especially  if  he  assumed  the  aristocratic  title  of  Duinhe  Wassel 
and  adorned  his  bonnet  with  the  eagle's  feather,  should  take  his 
ease,  except  when  he  was  fighting,  hunting,  or  marauding.  To 
mention  the  name  of  such  a  man  in  connection  with  commerce 
or  with  any  mechanical  art  was  an  insult.  Agriculture  was 
indeed  less  despised.  Yet  a  highborn  warrior  was  much  more 
becomingly  employed  in  plundering  the  land  of  others  than  in 
tilling  his  own.  The  religion  of  the  greater  part  of  the  High- 
lands was  a  rude  mixture  of  Popery  and  Paganism.  The  symbol 
of  redemption  was  associated  with  heathen  sacrifices  and  incan- 
tations. Baptised  men  poured  libations  of  ale  to  one  Daemon, 
and  set  out  drink  offerings  of  milk  for  another.  Seers  wrapped 
themselves  up  in  bulls'  hides,  and  awaited,  in  that  vesture,  the 
inspiration  which  was  to  reveal  the  future.  Even  among  those 
minstrels  and  genealogists  whose  hereditary  vocation  was  to 
preserve  the  memory  of  past  events,  an  enquirer  would  have 
found  very  few  who  could  read.  In  truth,  he  might  easily  have 
journeyed  from  sea  to  sea  without  discovering  a  page  of  Gaelic 
printed  or  written.  The  price  which  he  would  have  had  to  pay 
for  his  knowledge  of  the  country  would  have  been  heavy.  He 
«vould  have  had  to  endure  hardships  as  great  as  if  he  had  sojourn- 
ed among  the  Esquimaux  or  the  Samoyeds.  Here  and  there, 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  279 

indeed,  at  the  castle  of  some  great  lord  who  had  a  seat  in  the 
Parliament  and  Privy  Council,  and  who  was  accustomed  to  pass 
a  large  part  of  his  life  in  the  cities  of  the  South,  might  have 
been  found  wigs  and  embroidered  coats,  plate  and  fine  linen,  lace 
and  jewels,  French  dishes  and  French  wines.  But,  in  general, 
the  traveller  would  have  been  forced  to  content  himself  with 
very  different  quarters.  In  many  dwellings  the  furniture,  the 
food,  the  clothing,  nay  the  very  hair  and  skin  of  his  hosts,  would 
have  put  his  philosophy  to  the  proof.  His  lodging  would  some- 
times have  been  in  a  hut  of  which  every  nook  would  have 
swarmed  with  vermin.  lie  would  have  inhaled  an  atmosphere 
thick  with  peat  smoke,  and.  foul  with  a  hundred  noisome  exhala- 
tions. At  supper  grain  fit  only  for  horses  would  have  been  set 
before  him,  accompanied  by  a  cake  of  blood  drawn  from  living 
cows.  Some  of  the  company  with  which  he  would  have  feasted 
would  have  been  covered  with  cutaneous  eruptions,  and  others 
would  have  been  smeared  with  tar  like  sheep.  His  couch  would 
Lave  been  the  bare  earth,  dry  or  wet  as  the  weather  might  be  ; 
and  from  that  couch  he  would  have  risen  half  poisoned  with 
stench,  half  blind  with  the  reek  of  turf,  and  half  mad  with  the 
itch.*  ' 

This  is  not  an  attractive  picture.  And  yet  an  enlightened 
and  dispassionate  observer  would  have  found  in  the  character 
and  manners  of  this  rude  people  something  which  might  well 
excite  admiration  and  a  good  hope.  Their  courage  was  what 
great  exploits  achieved  in  all  the  four  quarters  of  the  globe  have 
since  proved  it  to  be.  Their  intense  attachment  to  their  own 
tribe  and  to  their  own  patriarch,  though  politically  a  great  evil, 
partook  of  the  nature  of  virtue.  The  sentiment  was  misdirected 
and  ill  regulated  ;  but  still  it  was  heroic.  There  must  be  some 

O 

elevation  of  soul  in  a  man  who  loves  the  society  of  which  he  is 
a  member  and  the  leader  whom  he  follows  with  a  love  stronger 

*  Almost  all  these  circumstances  are  taken  from  Burt's  Letters.  For  the  tar, 
I  am  indebted  to  Cleland's  poetry.  In  his  verses  on  the  "Highland  Host  "  he 
Bays : 

"  The  reason  is.  they're  »me»red  vith  tar, 
'Which  do'h  ''c'enrt  their  head  and  neck, 
Just  as  it  doth  their  sheep  protect." 


280  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

than  the  love  of  life.  It  was  true  that  the  Highlander  had  few 
scruples  about  shedding  the  blood  of  an  enemy  ;  but  it  was  not 
less  true  that  he  had  high  notions  of  the  duty  of  observing  faith 
to  allies  and  hospitality  to  guests.  It  was  true  that  his  preda- 
tory habits  were  most  pernicious  to  the  commonwealth.  Yet 
those  erred  greatly  who  imagined  that  he  bore  any  resemblance 
to  villains  who,  in  rich  and  well  governed  communities,  live  by 
stealing.  When  he  drove  before  him  the  herds  of  Lowland 
farmers  up  the  pass  which  led  to  his  native  glen,  he  no  more 
considered  himself  as  a  thief  than  the  Raleighs  and  Drakes  con- 
sidered themselves  as  thieves  when  they  divided  the  cargoes  of 
Spanish  galleons.  He  was  a  warrior  seizing  lawful  prize  of 
war,  of  war  never  once  intermitted  during  the  thirty-five  gener- 
ations which  had  passed  away  since  the  Teutonic  invaders  had 
driven  the  children  of  the  soil  to  the  mountains.  That,  if  he 
was  caught  robbing  on  such  principles,  he  should,  for  the  pro- 
tection of  peaceful  industry,  be  punished  with  the  utmost  rigour 
of  the  law  was  perfectly  just.  But  it  was  not  just  to  class  him 
morally  with  the  pickpockets  who  infested  Drury  Lane  Theatre, 
or  the  highwayman  who  stopped  coaches  on  Blackheath.  His 
inordinate  pride  of  birth  and  his  contempt  for  labour  and  trade 
were  indeed  great  weaknesses,  and  had  done  far  more  than  the 
inclemency  of  the  air  and  the  sterility  of  the  soil  to  keep  his 
country  poor  and  rude.  Yet  even  here  there  was  some  com- 
pensation. It  must  in  fairness  be  acknowledged  that  the  patri- 
cian virtues  were  not  less  widely  diffused  among  the  population 
of  the  Highlands  than  the  patrician  vices.  As  there  was  no 
other  part  of  the  island  where  men,  sordidly  clothed,  lodged, 
and  fed,  indulged  themselves  to  such  a  degree  in  the  idle  saun- 
tering habits  of  an  aristocracy,  so  there  was  no  other  part  of 
the  island  where  such  men  had  in  such  a  degree  the  better 
qualities  of  an  aristocracy,  grace  and  dignity  of  manner,  self- 
respect,  and  that  noble  sensibility  which  makes  dishonour  more 
terrible  than  death.  A  gentleman  of  Sky  or  Lochaber,  whose 
clothes  were  begrimed  with  the  accumulated  filth  of  years,  and 
whose  hovel  smelt  worse  than  an  English  hogstye,  would  often 
do  the  honours  of  that  hovel  with  a  lofty  courtesy  worthy  of  the 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  281 

splendid  circle  of  Versailles.  Though  he  had  as  little  book- 
learning  as  the  most  stupid  ploughboys  of  England,  it  would 
have  been  a  great  error  to  put  him  in  the  same  intellectual  rank 
with  such  ploughboys.  It  is  indeed  only  by  reading  that  men 
can  become  profoundly  acquainted  with  any  science.  But  the 
arts  of  poetry  and  rhetoric  may  be  carried  near  to  absolute  per- 
fection, and  may  exercise  a  mighty  influence  on  the  public  mind, 
in  an  age  in  which  books  are  wholly  or  almost  wholly  unknown. 
The  first  great  painter  of  life  and  manners  has  described  with 
a  vivacity  which  makes  it  impossible  to  doubt  that  he  was  copy- 
ing from  nature,  the  effect  produced  by  eloquence  and  song  on 
audiences  ignorant  of  the  alphabet.  It  is  probable  that,  in  the 
Highland  councils,  men  who  would  'not  have  been  qualified  for 
the  duty  of  parish  clerk  sometimes  argued  questions  of  peace 
and  war,  of  tribute  and  homage,  with  ability  worthy  of  Halifax 
and  Caermartheu,  and  that,  at  the  Highland  banquets,  minstrels 
who  did  not  know  their  letters  sometimes  poured  forth  rhapso- 
dies in  which  a  discerning  critic  might  have  found  passages 
such  as  would  have  reminded  him  of  the  tenderness  of  Otway 
or  of  the  vigour  of  Dryden. 

There  was  therefore  even  then  evidence  sufficient  to  justify 
the  belief  that  no  natural  inferiority  had  kept  the  Celt  far 
behind  the  Saxon.  It  might  safely  have  been  predicted  that,  if 
ever  an  efficient  police  should  make  it  impossible  for  the  High- 
lander to  avenge  his  wrongs  by  violence  and  to  supply  his  wants 
by  rapine,  if  ever  his  faculties  should  be  developed  by  the 
civilising  influence  of  the  Protestant  religion  and  of  the  English 
language,  if  ever  he  should  transfer  to  his  country  and  to  her 
lawful  magistrates  the  affection  and  respect  with  which  he  had 
been  taught  to  regard  his  own  petty  community  and  his  own 
petty  prince,  the  kingdom  would  obtain  an  immense  accession 
of  strength  for  all  the  purposes  both  of  peace  and  of  war. 

Such  would  doubtless  have  been  the  decision  of  a  well  in- 
formed and  impartial  judge.  But  no  such  judge  was  then  to  be 
found.  The  Saxons  who  dwelt  far  from  the  Gaelic  provinces 
could  not  be  well  informed.  The  Saxons  who  dwelt  near  those 
provinces  could  not  be  impartial.  National  enmities  have  always 


282  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

been  fiercest  among  borderers;  and  the  enmity  between  the 
Highland  borderer  and  the  Lowland  borderer  along  the  whole 
frontier  was  the  growth  of  ages,  and  was  kept  fresh  by  constant 
injuries.  One  day  many  square  miles  of  pasture  land  were 
swept  bare  by  armed  plunderers  from  the  hills.  Another  day 
a  score  of  plaids  dangled  in  a  row  on  the  gallows  of  Crieff  or 
Stirling.  Fairs  were  indeed  held  on  the  debatable  land  for  the 
necessary  interchange  of  commodities.  But  to  those  fairs  both 
parties  came  prepared  for  battle  ;  and  the  day  often  ended  in 
bloodshed.  Thus  the  Highlander  was  an  object  of  hatred  to 
his  Saxon  neighbours  ;  and  from  his  Saxon  neighbours  those 
Saxons  who  dwelt  far  from  him  learned  the  very  little  that 
they  cared  to  know  about  his  habits.  When  the  English  con- 
descended to  think  of  him  at  all, — and  it  was  seldom  that  they 
did  so, — they  considered  him  as  a  filthy  abject  savage,  a  slave, 
a  Papist,  a  cutthroat,  and  a  thief.* 

This  contemptuous   loathing  lasted  till  the  year  1745,  and 

*  A  striking  illustration  of  the  opinion  which  was  entertained  of  the  High- 
lander by  his  Lowland  neighbours,  ami  which  was  by  them  communicated  to  the 
English,  will  he  found  in  a  volume  of  Miscellanies  published  by  Afra  Behn  in 
1685-  One  of  the  most  curious  pieces  in  the  collection  is  a  coarse  and  profane 
Scotch  poem  entitled,  "  How  the  first  Hielandman  was  made."  How  and  of 
•what  materials  he  was  made  I  shall  not  venture  to  relate.  The  dialogue  which 
immediately  follows  his  creation  may  be  quoted,  I  hope,  without  much  offence. 

1  Says  God  to  the  Hielandman.  ;  Quhair  wilt  thou  now    ' 
'I  will  down  to  the  Lowlands.  Lord,  and  there  steal  a  cow.1 
'  Ffy,'  quod  St.  Peter,  'thou  wilt  never  do  weel, 
'  An  thou,  but  new  made,  so  eone  gaisto  steal.' 
'  TJmff,'  quod  the  Hielandman,  and  swore  by  yon  kirk, 
'  So  long  as  I  may  geir  get  to  steal,  will  I  nevir  work." 

An  eminent  Lowland  Scot,  the  brave  Colonel  Cleland,  about  the  same  time,  des- 
cribed the  Highlander  in  the  same  manner  : 

"  For  a  misobliging  word 
She'll  dirk  her  neighbour  o'er  the  board. 
If  any  nsk  her  of  her  drift. 
Forsooth,  hernainself  lives  by  theft." 

Much  to  the  same  effect  are  the  very  few  words  which  Francis  Philanthrop'us 
(1694)  spares  to  the  Highlanders:  "They  live  like  lairds  and  die  like  loons, 
hating  to  work  and  no  credit  to  borrow  :  they  make  depredations  and  rob  their 
neighbours."  In  the  History  of  the  Revolution  in  Scotland,  printed  at  Edin- 
burgh in  1690,  is  the  following  passage  :  "  The  Highlanders  of  Scotland  are  a  sort 
of  wretches  that  have  no  other  consideration  of  honour,  friendship,  obedience, 
or  government,  than  as,  by  any  alternation  of  affairs  or  revolution  in  the  gov- 
ernment, they  can  improve  to  themselves  an  opportunity  of  robbing  or  plunder- 
ins  their  bordering  neighbours," 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  283 

was  then  for  a  moment  succeeded  by  intense  fear  and  rage. 
England,  thoroughly  alarmed,  put  forth  her  whole  strength. 
The  Highlands  were  subjugated  rapidly,  completely,  and  for 
ever.  During  a  short  time  the  English  nation,  still  heated  by 
the  recent  conflict,  breathed  nothing  but  vengeance.  The 
slaughter  on  the  field  of  battle  and  on  the  scaffold  was  not 
sufficient  to  slake  the  public  thirst  for  blood.  The  sight  of 
the  tartan  inflamed  the  populace  of  London  with  hatred,  which 
showed  itself  by  unmanly  outrages  to  defenceless  captives.  A 
political  and  social  revolution  took  place  through  the  whole 
Celtic  region.  The  power  of  the  chiefs  was  destroyed :  the 
people  were  disarmed  :  the  use  of  the  old  national  garb  was 
interdicted  :  the  old'  predatory  habits  were  effectually  broken  ; 
and  scarcely  had  this  change  been  accomplished  when  a 
strange  reflux  of  public  feeling  began.  Pity  succeeded  to 
aversion.  The  nation  execrated  the  cruelties  which  had  been 
committed  on  the  Highlanders,  and  forgot  that  for  those  cru- 
elties it  was  itself  answerable.  Those  very  Londoners,  who, 
while  the  memory  of  the  march  to  Derby  was  still  fresh,  had 
thronged  to  hoot  and  pelt  the  rebel  prisoners,  now  fastened  on 
the  prince  who  had  put  down  the  rebellion  the  nickname  of 
Butcher.  Those  barbarous  institutions  and  usages,  which, 
while  they  were  in  full  force,  no  Saxon  had  thought  worthy 
of  serious  examination,  or  had  mentioned  except  with  con- 
tempt, had  no  sooner  ceased  to  exist  than  they  became  objects 
of  curiosity,  of  interest,  even  of  admiration.  Scarcely  had  the 
chiefs  been  turned  into  mere  landlords,  when  it  became  the 
fashion  to  draw  invidious  comparisons  between  the  rapacity  of 
the  landlord  and  the  indulgence  of  the  chief.  Men  seemed  to 
have  forgotten  that  the  ancient  Gaelic  polity  had  been  found 
to  be  incompatible  with  the  authority  of  law,  had  obstructed 
the  progress  of  civilisation,  had  more  than  once  brought  on  the 
empire  the  curse  of  civil  war.  As  they  had  formerly  seen  only 
the  odious  side  of  that  polity,  they  could  now  see  only  the 
pleasing  side.  The  old  tie,  they  said,  had  been  parental :  the 
new  tie  was  purely  commercial.  What  could  be  more  lament- 
able tha:i  th:it  the  head  of  a  tribe  should  eject,  for  a  paltry 


284  HISTOUY   OF    ENGLAND. 

arrear  of  rent,  tenants  who  were  his  own  flesh  and  blood, 
tenants  whose  forefathers  had  often  with  their  bodies  covered 
his  forefathers  on  the  field  of  battle?  As  long  as  there  were 
Gaelic  marauders,  they  had  been  regarded  by  the  Saxon  popu- 
lation as  hateful  vermin  who  ought  to  be  exterminated  without 
mercy.  As  soon  as  the  extermination  had  been  accomplished, 
as  soon  as  cattle  were  as  safe  in  the  Perthshire  passes  as  in 
Smithfield  market,  the  freebooter  was  exalted  into  a  hero  of 
romance.  As  long  as  the  Gaelic  dress  was  worn,  the  Saxons 
had  pronounced  it  hideous,  ridiculous,  nay,  grossly  indecent. 
Soon  after  it  had  been  prohibited,  they  discovered  that  it  was 
the  most  graceful  drapery  in  Europe.  The  Gaelic  monuments, 
the  Gaelic  usages,  the  Gaelic  superstition-s,  the  Gaelic  verses, 
disdainfully  neglected  during  many  ages,  began  to  attract  the 
attention  of  the  learned  from  the  moment  at  which  the  pecu- 
liarities of  the  Gaelic  race  began  to  disappear.  So  strong  was 
this  impulse  that,  where  the  Highlands  were  concerned,  men 
of  sense  gave  ready  credence  to  stories  without  evidence,  and 
men  of  taste  gave  rapturous  applause  to  compositions  without 
merit.  Epic  poems,  which  any  skilful  and  dispassionate  critic 
would  at  a  glance  have  perceived  to  be  almost  entirely  modern, 
and  which,  if  they  had  been  published  as  modern,  would  have 
instantly  found  their  proper  place  in  company  with  Blackmore's 
Alfred  and  Wilkie's  Epigoniad,  were  pronounced  to  be  fifteen 
hundred  years  old,  and  were  gravely  classed  with  the  Iliad. 
Writers  of  a  very  different  order  from  the  impostor  who  fabri 
cated  these  forgeries  saw  how  striking  an  effect  might  be 
produced  by  skilful  pictures  of  the  old  Highland  life.  What- 
ever was  repulsive  was  softened  down  :  whatever  was  graceful 
and  noble  was  brought  prominently  forward.  Some  of  these 
works  were  executed  with  such  admirable  art  that,  like  the 
historical  plays  of  Shakespeare,  they  superseded  history.  The 
visions  of  the  poet  were  realities  to  his  readers.  The  places 
which  he  described  became  holy  ground,  and  were  visited  by 
thousands  of  pilgrims.  Soon  the  vulgar  imagination  was  so 
completely  occupied  by  plaids,  targets,  and  claymores,  that, 
by  most  Englishmen,  Scotchman  and  Highlander  were  r«- 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  285 

garded  as  synonymous  words.  Few  people  seemed  to  be  aware 
that,  at  no  remote  period,  a  Macdonald  or  a  Macgregor  in  his 
tartan  was  to  a  citizen  of  Edinburgh  or  Glasgow  what  an  In- 
dian hunter  in  his  war  paint  is  to  an  inhabitant  of  Philadelphia 
or  Boston.  Artists  and  actors  represented  Bruce  and  Douglas 
in  striped  petticoats.  They  might  as  well  have  represented 
Washington  brandishing  a  tomahawk,  and  girt  with  a  string 
of  scalps.  At  length  this  fashion  reached  a  point  beyond 
which  it  was  not  easy  to  proceed.  The  last  British  King  who 
held  a  court  in  Holyrood  thought  that  he  could  not  give  a  more 
striking  proof  of  his  respect  for  the  usages  which  had  prevailed 
in  Scotland  before  the  Union,  than  by  disguising  himself  in 
what,  before  the  Union,  was  considered  by  nine  Scotchmen  out 
of  ten  as  the  dress  of  a  thief. 

Thus  it  has  chanced  that  the  old  Gaelic  institutions  and  man- 
ners have  never  been  exhibited  in  the  simple  light  of  truth.  Up 
to  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  they  were  seen  through  one 
false  medium  :  they  have  since  been  seen  through  another.  Once 
they  loomed  dimly  through  an  obscuring  and  distorting  haze  of 
prejudice  ;  and  no  sooner  had  that  fog  dispersed  than  they  ap- 
peared bright  with  all  the  richest  tints  of  poetry.  The  time  when 
a  perfectly  fair  picture  could  have  been  painted  has  now  passed 
away.  The  original  has  long  disappeared  :  no  authentic  effigy 
exists  :  and  all  that  is  possible  is  to  produce  an  imperfect  like- 
ness by  the  help  of  two  portraits,  of  which  one  is  a  coarse 
caricature  and  the  other  a  masterpiece  of  flattery. 

Among  the  erroneous  notions  which  have  been  commonly 
received  concerning  the  history  and  character  of  the  Highlanders 
is  one  which  it  is  especially  necessary  to  correct.  During  the 
century  which  commenced  with  the  campaign  of  Montrose,  and 
terminated  with  the  campaign  of  the  young  Pretender,  every 
great  military  exploit  which  was  achieved  on  British  ground  in 
the  case  of  the  House  of  Stuart  was  achieved  by  the  valour  of 
Gaelic  tribes.  The  English  have  therefore  very  naturally  as- 
cribed to  those  tribes  the  feelings  of  English  cavaliers,  profound 
reverence  for  the  royal  office,  and  enthusiastic  attachment  to  the 
royal  family.  A  close  enquiry  however  will  show  that  the 


286  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

strength  of  these  feelings  among  the  Celtic  clans  has  been  great- 
ly exaggerated. 

In  studying  the  history  of  our  civil  contentions,  we  must 
never  forget  that  the  same  names,  badges,  and  warcries  had  very 
different  meanings  in  different  parts  of  the  British  isles.  We 
have  already  seen  how  little  there  was  in  common  between  the 
Jacobitism  of  Ireland  and  the  Jacobitism  of  England.  The 
Jacobitism  of  the  Scotch  Highlander  was,  at  least  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  a  third  variety,  quite  distinct  from  the  other  two. 
The  Gaelic  population  was  far  indeed  from  holding  the  doctrines 
of  passive  obedience  andnonresistance.  In  fact  disobedience  and 
resistance  made  up  the  ordinary  life  of  that  population.  Some  of 
those  very  clans  which  it  has  been  the  fashion  to  describe  as  so 
enthusiastically  loyal  that  they  were  prepared  to  standby  James 
to  the  death,  even  when  he  was  in  the  wrong,  had  never,  while  he 
was  on  the  throne,  paid  the  smallest  respect  to  his  authority,  even 
when  he  was  clearly  in  the  right.  Their  practice,  their  calling,  had 
been  to  disobey  and  to  defy  him.  Some  of  them  had  actually  been 
proscribed  by  sound  of  horn  for  the  crime  of  withstanding  his 
lawful  commands,  and  would  have  torn  to  pieces  without  scruple 
any  of  his  officers  who  had  dared  to  venture  beyond  the  passes  for 
the  purpose  of  executing  his  warrant.  The  English  Whigs  were 
accused  by  their  opponents  of  holding  doctrines  dangerously  lax 
touching  the  obedience  due  to  the  chief  magistrate.  Yet  no  re- 
spectable English  Whig  ever  defended  rebellion,  except  as  a  rare 
and  extreme  remedy  for  rare  and  extreme  evils.  But  among 
those  Celtic  chiefs  whose  loyalty  has  been  the  theme  of  so  much 
warm  eulogy  were  some  whose  whole  existence  from  boyhood 
upwards  had  been  one  long  rebellion.  Such  men,  it  is  evident, 
were  not  likely  to  see  the  Revolution  in  the  light  in  which  it 
appeared  to  an  Oxonian  nonjuror.  On  the  other  hand  they  were 
not,  like  the  aboriginal  Irish,  urged  to  take  arms  by  impatience 
of  Saxon  domination.  To  such  domination  the  Scottish  Celt 
had  never  been  subjected.  He  occupied  his  own  wild  and  sterile 
region,  and  followed  his  own  national  usages.  In  his  dealings 
with  the  Saxons,  he  was  rather  the  oppressor  than  the  oppressed. 
He  exacted  black  mail  from  them :  he  drove  away  their  ilocka 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  287 

and  herds  ;  and  they  seldom  dared  to  pursue  him  to  his  native 
wilderness.  They  had  never  portioned  out  among  themselves 
his  dreary  region  of  moor  and  shingle.  He  had  never  seen  the 
tower  of  his  hereditary  chieftains  occupied  by  an  usurper  who 
could  not  speak  Gaelic,  and  who  looked  on  all  who  spoke  it  as 
brutes  and  slaves  ;  nor  had  his  national  and  religious  feelings 
ever  been  outraged  by  the  power  and  splendour  of  a  church 
which  he  regarded  as  at  once  foreign  and  heretical. 

The  real  explanation  of  the  readiness  with  which  a  large 
part  of  the  population  of  the  Highlands,  twice  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  drew  the  sword  for  the  Stuarts  is  to  be  found  in 
the  internal  quarrels  which  divided  the  commonwealth  of  clans. 
For  there  was  a  commonwealth  of  clans,  the  image,  on  a  reduced 
scale,  of  the  great  commonwealth  of  European  nations.  In  the 
smaller  of  these  two  commonwealths,  as  in  the  larger,  there 
were  wars,  treaties,  alliances,  disputes  about  territory  and  pre- 
cedence, a  system  of  public  law,  a  balance  of  power.  There 
was  one  inexhaustible  source  of  discontents  and  quarrels.  The 
feudal  system  had,  some  centuries  before,  been  introduced  into 
the  hill  country,  but  had  neither  destroyed  the  patriarchal  sys- 
tem nor  amalgamated  completely  with  it.  In  general  he  who 
was  lord  in  the  Norman  polity  was  also  chief  in  the  Celtic  pol- 
ity ;  and,  when  this  was  the  case,  there  was  no  conflict.  But, 
when  the  two  characters  were  separated,  all  the  willing  and 
loyal  obedience  was  reserved  for  the  chief.  The  lord  had  only 
what  he  could  get  and  hold  by  force.  If  he  was  able,  by  the 
help  of  his  own  tribe,  to  keep  in  subjection  tenants  who  were 
not  of  his  own  tribe,  there  was  a  tyranny  of  clan  over  clan,  the 
most  galling,  perhaps,  of  all  forms  of  tyranny.  At  different 
times  different  races  had  risen  to  an  authority  which  had  pro- 
duced general  fear  and  envy.  The  Macdonalds  had  once  pos- 
sessed, in  the  Hebrides  and  throughout  the  mountain  country  of 
Argyleshire  and  Invernessshire,  an  ascendency  similar  to  that 
which  the  House  of  Austria  had  once  possessed  in  Christendom. 
But  the  ascendency  of  the  Macdonalds  had,  like  the  ascendency 
of  the  House  of  Austria,  passed  away  :  and  the  Campbells,  the 
children  of  Diarmid,  had  become  in  the  Highlands  what  the 


288  HISTORY   OP   ENGLAND. 

Bourbons  had  become  in  Europe.*  The  parallel  might  be 
carried  far.  Imputations  similar  to  those  which  it  was  the 
fashion  to  throw  on  the  French  government  were  thrown  on 
the  Campbells.  A  peculiar  dexterity,  a  peculiar  plausibility  of 
address,  a  peculiar  contempt  for  the  obligations  of  plighted  faith, 
were  ascribed,  with  or  without  reason,  to  the  dreaded  race. 
"  Fair  and  false  like  a  Campbell,"  became  a  proverb.  It  was 
said  that  Mac  Callum  More  after  Mac  Callum  More  had,  with 
unwearied,  unscrupulous,  and  unrelenting  ambition,  annexed 
mountain  after  mountain  and  island  after  island  to  the  original 

O 

domains  of  his  House.  Some  tribes  had  been  expelled  from 
their  territory,  some  compelled  to  pay  tribute,  some  incorpor- 
ated with  the  conquerors.  At  length  the  number  of  fighting 
men  who  bore  the  name  of  Campbell  was  sufficient  to  meet  in 
the  field  of  battle  the  combined  forces  of  all  the  other  western 
clans.  It  was  during  those  civil  troubles  which  commenced  in 
1638  that  the  power  of  this  aspiring  family  reached  the  zenith. 
The  Marquess  of  Argyle  was  the  head  of  a  party  as  well  as  the 
head  of  a  tribe.  Possessed  of  two  different  kinds  of  authority,  he 
used  each  of  them  in  such  a  way  as  to  extend  and  fortify  the  other. 
The  knowledge  that  he  could  bring  into  the  field  the  claymores 
of  five  thousand  half  heathen  mountaineers  added  to  his  in- 
fluence among  the  austere  Presbyterians  who  filled  the  Privy 
Council  and  the  General  Assembly  at  Edinburgh.  His  influence 
at  Edinburgh  added  to  the  terror  which  he  inspired  among  the 
mountains.  Of  all  the  Highland  Princes  whose  history  is  well 
known  to  us  he  was  the  greatest  and  most  dreaded.  It  was 
while  his  neighbours  were  watching  the  increase  of  his  power 
with  hatred  which  fear  could  scarcely  keep  down  that  Montrose 
called  them  to  arms.  The  call  was  promptly  obeyed.  A  power- 
ful coalition  of  clans  waged  war,  nominally  for  King  Charles, 
but  really  against  Mac  Callum  More.  It  is  not  easy  for  any 

*  Since  this  passage  was  written  I  was  much  pleased  by  finding  that  Lord 
Fountainhall  u«ed,.in  July  1C76,  exactly  the  same  illustration  which  had  occurred 
to  me.  He  says  that  "  Argyle's  ambitious  grasping  at  the  mastery  of  the  High- 
lands and  Western  Islands  of  Mull,  Ha,  &c.,  stirred  up  other  clans  to  enter  into 
a  combination  for  bearing  him  downe,  like  the  confederat  forces  of  Gemianie, 
Spain,  Holland,  &c.,  against  the  growth  of  the  French." 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  289 

person  who  has  studied  the  history  of  that  contest  to  doubt  that, 
if  Argyle  had  supported  the  cause  of  monai-chy,  his  neighbours 
would  have  declared  against  it.  Grave  writers  tell  of  the  vic- 
tory gained  at  Iverlochy  by  the  royalists  over  the  rebels.  But 
the  peasants  who  dwell  near  the  spot  speak  more  accurately. 
They  talk  of  the  great  battle  won  there  by  the  Macdonalds  over 
the  Campbells. 

The  feelings  which  had  produced  the  coalition  against  the 
Marquess  of  Argyle  retained  their  force  long  after  his  death. 
His  son,  Earl  Archibald,  though  a  man  of  many  eminent  virtues, 
inherited,  with  the  ascendency  of  his  ancestors,  the  unpopularity 
which  such  ascendency  could  scarcely  fail  to  produce.  In  1675, 
several  warlike  tribes  formed  a  confederacy  against  him,  but 
were  compelled  to  submit  to  the  superior  force  which  was  at  his 
command.  There  was  therefore  great  joy  from  sea  to  sea  when, 
in  1681,  he  was  arraigned  on  a  futile  charge,  condemned  to 
death,  driven  into  exile,  and  deprived  of  his  dignities :  there 
was  great  alarm  when,  in  1685,  he  returned  from  banishment, 
and  sent  forth  the  fiery  cross  to  summon  his  kinsmen  to  his 
standard ;  and  there  was  again  great  joy  when  his  enterprise 
had  failed,  when  his  army  had  melted  away,  when  his  head  had 
been  fixed  on  the  Tolbooth  of  Edinburgh,  and  when  those  chiefs 
who  had  regarded  him  as  an  oppressor  had  obtained  from  the 
Crown,  on  easy  terms,  remissions  of  old  debts  and  grants  of 
new  titles.  While  England  and  Scotland  generally  were  exe- 
crating the  tyranny  of  James,  he  was  honoured  as  a  deliverer  in 
Apin  and  Lochaber,  in  Glenroy  and  Glenmore.*  The  hatred 
excited  by  the  power  and  ambition  of  the  House  of  Argyle  was 
not  satisfied  even  when  the  head  of  that  House  had  perished, 
when  his  children  were  fugitives,  when  strangers  garrisoned  the 
castle  of  Inverary,  and  when  the  whole  shore  of  Loch  Fyne  had 
been  laid  waste  by  fire  and  sword.  It  was  said  that  the  terrible 

*  In  the  introduction  to  the  Memoirs  of  Sir  Ewan  Cameron  is  a  very  sensible 
remark  :  "  It  may  appear  paradoxical  :  but  the  editor  cannot  help  hazarding  the 
conjecture  that  the  motives  which  prompted  the  Highlanders  to  support  King 
James  were  substantially  the  same  as  those  by  wjrich  the  promoters  of  the 
Revolution  were  actuated."  The  whole  intrpduption,  indeed,  well  deseryes  to  be 
read. 

VOL.  III.— 19 


290  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

precedent  which  had  been  set  iu  the  case  of  the  Macgregors 
ought  to  be  followed,  and  that  it  ought  to  be  made  a  crime  to 
bear  the  odious  name  of  Campbell. 

On  a  sudden  all  was  changed.  The  Revolution  came.  The 
heir  of  Argyle  returned  in  triumph.  He  was,  as  his  predecessors 
had  been,  the  head,  not  only  of  a  tribe,  but  of  a  party.  The 
sentence  which  had  deprived  him  of  his  estate  and  of  his  hon- 
ours was  treated  by  the  majority  of  the  Convention  as  a  nullity. 
The  doors  of  the  Parliament  House  were  thrown  open  to  him : 
he  was  selected  from  the  whole  body  of  Scottish  nobles  to 
administer  the  oath  of  office  to  the  new  Sovereigns  ;  and  he  was 
authorized  to  raise  an  army  on  his  domains  for  the  service  of 
the  Crown.  He  would  now,  doubtless,  be  as  powerful  as  the 
most  powerful  of  his  ancestors.  Backed  by  the  strength  of  the 
Government,  he  would  demand  all  the  long  and  heavy  arrears 
of  rent  and  tribute  which  were  due  to  him  from  his  neighbours, 
and  would  exact  revenge  for  all  the  injuries  and  insults  which 
his  family  had  suffered.  There  was  terror  and  agitation  in  the 
castles  of  twenty  petty  kings.  The  uneasiness  was  great  among 
the  Stewarts  of  Appin,  whose  territory  was  close  pressed  by  the 
sea  on  one  side,  and  by  the  race  of  Diarmid  on  the  other.  The 
Macnaghtens  were  still  more  alarmed.  Once  they  had  been 
the  masters  of  those  beautiful  valleys  through  which  the  Ara 
and  the  Shira  flow  into  Loch  Fyne.  But  the  Campbells  had 
prevailed.  The  Macnaghtens  had  been  reduced  to  subjection, 
and  had,  generation  after  generation,  looked  up  with  awe  and 
detestation  to  the  neighbouring  Castle  of  Inverary.  They  had 
recently  been  promised  a  complete  emancipation.  A  grant,  by 
virtue  of  which  their  chief  would  have  held  his  estate  immedi- 
ately from  the  Crown,  had  been  prepared  and  was  about  to  pass 
the  seals,  when  the  Revolution  suddenly  extinguished  a  hope 
which  amounted  almost  to  certainty.* 

The  Macleans  remembered  that,  only  fourteen  years  before, 
their  lands  had  been  invaded  and  the  seat  of  their  chief  taken 
and  garrisoned  by  the  Campbells. f  Even  before  William  and 

f  Skene's  Highlanders  of  Scotland  ;  Douglas's  Baronage  of  Scotland. 

*  Ses  the  Memoirs  of  the  Life  of  Sir  Ewaii  Cameron,  and  the  Historical  and 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  291 

Mary  had  been  proclaimed  at  Edinburgh,  a  Maclean,  deputed 
doubtless  by  the  head  of  his  tribe,  had  crossed  the  sea  to  Dub- 
lin, and  had  assured  James  that,  if  two  or  three  battalions  from 
Ireland  landed  in  Argyleshire,  they  would  be  immediately  joined 
by  four  thousand  four  hundred  claymores.* 

A  similar  spirit  animated  the  Camerons.  Their  ruler,  Sir 
Ewan  Cameron,  of  Lochiel,  surnamed  the  Black,  was  in  per- 
sonal qualities  unrivalled  among  the  Celtic  princes.  He  was  a 
gracious  master,  a  trusty  ally,  a  terrible  enemy.  His  counten- 
ance and  bearing  were  singularly  noble.  Some  persons  who 
had  been  at  Versailles,  and  among  them  the  shrewd  and  obser- 
vant Simon  Lord  Lovat,  said  that  there  was,  in  person  and 
manner,  a  most  striking  resemblance  between  Lewis  the  Four- 
teenth and  Lochiel  ;  and  whoever  compares  the  portraits  of  the 
two  will  perceive  that  there  really  was  some  likeness.  In  stat- 
ure the  difference  was  great.  Lewis,  in  spite  of  highheeled 
shoes  and  a  towering  wig,  hardly  reached  the  middle  size. 
Lochiel  was  tall  and  strongly  built.  In  agility  and  skill  at  his 
weapons  he  had  few  equals  among  the  inhabitants  of  the  hills. 
He  had  repeatedly  been  victorious  in  single  combat.  He  was  a 
hunter  of  great  fame.  He  made  vigorous  war  on  the  wolves 
which,  down  to  his  time,  preyed  on  the  red  deer  of  the  Gram- 
pians ;  and  by  his  hand  perished  the  last  of  the  ferocious  breed 
which  is  known  to  have  wandered  at  large  in  our  island.  Nor 
was  Lochiel  less  distinguished  by  intellectual  than  by  bodily 
vigour.  He  might  indeed  have  seemed  ignorant  to  educated 
and  travelled  Englishmen,  who  had  studied  the  classics  under 
Busby  at  Westminster  and  under  Aldrich  at  Oxford,  who  had 

Genealogical  Account  of  the  Clan  Maclean,  by  a  Senacliie.  Though  this  last 
work  was  published  so  late  as  1838,  the  writer  seems  to  have  bseii  inflamed  by 
animosity  as  tierce  as  that  with  which  the  Macleans  of  the  seventeenth  centuiy 
regarded  the  Campbells.  In  the  short  compass  of  one  page  the  Marquis  of 
Argyle  is  designated  as  "  the  diabolical  Scotch  Cromwell,"  "  the  vile  vindictive 
persecutor,"  "  the  base  traitor,"  and  "  the  Argyle  impostor."  In  another  page 
he  is  "  the  insidious  Campbell,  fertile  in  villany,"  "  the  avaricious  slave,"  "  the 
coward  of  Argyle,"  and  "  the  Scotch  traitor."  In  the  next  page  he  is  "  the  base 
and  vindictive  enemy  of  the  House  of  Maclean,"  "the  hypocritical  Covenanter," 
"  the  incorrigible  traitor,"  "  the  cowardly  and  malignant  enemy."  It  is  a  happy 
thing  that  passions  so  violent  can  now  vent  themselves  only  in  scolding. 

*  Letter  of  Avaux  to  Louvois,  April  6-16,  1689,  enclosing  a  paper  entitled 
Meinoire  du  Chevalier  Macklean. 


292  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

learned  something  about  the  sciences  among  Fellows  of  the 
Royal  Society,  and  something  about  the  fine  arts  in  the  galleries 
of  Florence  and  Rome.  But  though  Lochiel  had  very  little 
knowledge  of  books,  he  was  eminently  wise  in  council,  eloquent 
in  debate,  ready  in  devising  expedients,  and  skilful  in  managing 
the  minds  of  men.  His  understanding  preserved  him  from 
those  follies  into  which  pride  and  anger  frequently  hurried  his 
brother  chieftains.  Many,  therefore,  who  regarded  his  brother 
chieftains  as  mere  barbarians,  mentioned  him  with  respect. 
Even  at  the  Dutch  Embassy  in  Saint  James's  Square  he  was 
spoken  of  as  a  man  of  such  capacity  and  courage  that  it  would 
not  be  easy  to  find  his  equal.  As  a  patron  of  literature,  he 
ranks  with  the  magnificent  Dorset.  If  Dorset  out  of  his  own 
purse  allowed  Dryden  a  pension  equal  to  the  profits  of  the  Lau- 
reateship,  Lochiel  is  said  to  have  bestowed  on  a  celebrated 
bard,  who  had  been  plundered  by  marauders,  and  who  implored 
alms  in  a  pathetic  Gaelic  ode,  three  cows,  and  the  almost  in- 
credible sum  of  fifteen  pounds  sterling.  In  truth,  the  character 
of  this  great  chief  was  depicted  two  thousand  five  hundred  years 
before  his  birth,  and  depicted, — such  is  the  power  .of  genius, — 
in  colours  which  will  be  fresh  as  many  years  after  his  death. 
He  was  the  Ulysses  of  the  Highlands.* 

He  held  a  large  territory  peopled  by  a  race  which  rever- 
enced no  lord,  no  king  but  himself.  For  that  territory,  how- 
ever, he  owed  homage  to  the  House  of  Argyle  ;  and  he  was 
deeply  in  debt  to  his  feudal  superiors  for  rent.  This  vassalage 
he  had  doubtless  been  early  taught  to  consider  as  degrading 
and  unjust.  In  his  minority  he  had  been  the  ward  in  chivalry 
of  the  politic  Marquess,  and  had  been  educated  at  the  Castle  of 

*  See  the  singularly  interesting  Memoirs  of  Sir  Ewan  Cameron  of  Lochiel, 
printed  at  Edinburgh  for  the  Abbotsford  Club  in  1842.  The  MS.  must  have  been 
at  least  a  century  older.  See  also  in  the  same  volume  the  account  of  Sir  Ewan'a 
death,  copied  from  the  Balhadie  papers.  I  ought  to  say  that  the  author  of  the 
Memoirs  of  Sir  Ewan,  though  evidently  well  informed  about  the  affairs  of  the 
Highlands  and  the  characters  of  the  most  distinguished  chiefs,  was  grossly  igno- 
rant of  English  politics  and  history.  I  will  quote  what  Van  Citters  wrote  to  the 

States  General  about  Lochiel,       '' 2(i>  1G89  :  "  Sir  Evan  Cameron,  Lord  Locheale, 

Dec.  G. 

een  man. — sooik  hoor  van  die  hem  lange  gekent  en  dagelyk  hebben  mede  omge- 
gaan,— van  so  groot  verstant,  courage,  en  beleyt,  als  wyuiges  syns  gelycke  syn." 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  293 

Inverary.  But  at  eighteen  the  boy  broke  loose  from  the  au- 
thority of  his  guardian,  and  fought  bravely  both  for  Charles 
the  First  and  for  Charles  the  Second.  lie  was  therefore  con- 
sidered by  the  English  as  a  Cavalier,  was  well  received  at 
Whitehall  after  the  Restoration,  and  was  knighted  by  the  hand 
of  James.  The  compliment,  however,  which  was  paid  to  him, 
on  one  of  his  appearances  at  the  English  Court,  would  not  have 
seemed  very  flattering  to  a  Saxon.  "  Take  care  of  your  pockets, 
my  lords,"  cried  His  Majesty ;  "  here  comes  the  king  of  the 
thieves."  The  loyalty  of  Lochiel  is  almost  proverbial ;  but  it 
was  very  unlike  what  was  called  loyalty  in  England.  In  the 
records  of  the  Scottish  Parliament  he  was,  in  the  days  of  Charles 
the  Second,  described  as  a  lawless  and  rebellious  man,  who  held 
lands  masterfully  and  in  high  contempt  of  the  royal  authority.* 
On  one  occasion  the  Sheriff  of  Invernessshire  was  directed  by 
King  James  to  hold  a  court  in  Lochaber.  Lochiel,  jealous  of 
this  interference  with  his  own  patriarchal  despotism,  came  to 
the  tribunal  at  the  head  of  four  hundred  armed  Camerons.  He 
affected  great  reverence  for  the  royal  commission,  but  he 
dropped  three  or  four  words  which  were  perfectly  understood  by 
the  pages  and  armourbearers  who  watched  every  turn  of  his  eye. 
"  Is  none  of  my  lads  so  clever  as  to  send  this  judge  packing  ? 
I  have  seen  them  get  up  a  quarrel  when  there  was  less  need  of 
one."  In  a  moment  a  brawl  began  in  the  crowd,  none  could 
say  how  or  where.  Hundreds  of  dirks  were  out :  cries  of 
"•  Help  "  aud  "  Murder  "  were  raised  on  all  sides  :  many  wounds 
were  inflicted :  two  men  were  killed :  the  sitting  broke  up  in 
tumult;  and  the  terrified  Sheriff  was  forced  to  put  himself 
under  the  protection  of  the  chief,  who,  with  a  plausible  show  of 
respect  and  concern,  escorted  him  safe  home.  It  is  amusing  to 
think  that  the  man  who  performed  this  feat  is  constantly  ex- 
tolled as  the  most  faithful  and  dutiful  of  subjects  by  writers 
who  blame  Somers  and  Burnet  as  contemners  of  the  legitimate 
authority  of  Sovereigns.  Lochiel  would  undoubtedly  have 
laughed  the  doctrine  of  nonresistance  to  scorn.  But  scarcely 
any  chief  in  Invernessshire  had  gained  more  than  he  by  the 

»  Act.  Parl.,  July  5, 1661. 


294  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

downfall  of  the  House  of  Argyle,  or  had  more  reason  than  he 
to  dread  the  restoration  of  that  House.  Scarcely  any  chief  in 
Invernessshire,  therefore,  was  more  alarmed  and  disgusted  by 
the  proceedings  of  the  Convention. 

But  of  all  those  Highlanders  who  looked  on  the  recent  turn 
of  fortune  with  painful  apprehension  the  fiercest  and  the  most  pow- 
erful were  the  Macdonalds.  More  than  one  of  the  magnates  who 
bore  that  widespread  name  laid  claim  to  the  honour  of  being  the 
rightful  successor  of  those  Lords  of  the  Isles,  who,  as  late  as  the 
fifteenth  century,  disputed  the  preeminence  of  the  Kings  of 
Scotland.  This  genealogical  controversy,  which  has  lasted  down  to 
our  own  time,  caused  much  bickering  among  the  competitors.  But 
they  all  agreed  in  regretting  the  past  splendour  of  their  dynasty, 
and  in  detesting  the  upstart  race  of  Campbell.  The  old  feud 
had  never  slumbered.  It  was  still  constantly  repeated,  in  verse 
and  prose,  that  the  finest  part  of  the  domain  belonging  to  the 
ancient  heads  of  the  Gaelic  nation,  Islay,  where  they  had  lived 
with  the  pomp  of  royalty,  lona,  where  they  had  been  interred 
with  the  pomp  of  religion,  the  paps  of  Jura,  the  rich  peninsula 
of  Kintyre,  had  been  transferred  from  the  legitimate  possessors 
to  the  insatiable  Mac  Callum  More.  Since  the  downfall  of  the 
House  of  Argyle,  the  Macdonalds,  if  they  had  not  regained 
their  ancient  superiority,  might  at  least  boast  that  they  had  now 
no  superior.  Relieved  from  the  fear  of  their  mighty  enemy  in 
the  West,  they  had  turned  their  arms  against  weaker  enemies  in 
the  East,  against  the  clan  of  Mackintosh  and  against  the  town 
of  Inverness. 

The  clan  of  Mackintosh,  a  branch  of  an  ancient  and  renown- 
ed tribe  which  took  its  name  and  badge  from  the  wild  cat  of  the 
forests,  had  a  dispute  with  the  Macdonalds,  which  originated,  if 
tradition  may  be  believed,  in  those  dark  times  when  the  Danish 
pirates  wasted  the  coasts  of  Scotland.  Inverness  was  a  Saxon 
colony  among  the  Celts,  a  hive  of  traders  and  artisans,  in  the 
midst  of  a  population  of  loungers  and  plunderers,  a  solitary  out- 
post of  civilisation  in  a  region  of  barbarians.  Though  the 
buildings  covered  but  a  small  part  of  the  space  over  which  they 
now  extend  ;  though  the  arrival  of  a  brig  in  the  port  was  a  rare 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  295 

event  ;  though  the  Exchange  was  the  middle  of  a  mhy  street,  in 
which  stood  a  market  cross  much  resembling  a  broken  milestone  ; 
though  the  sittings  of  the  municipal  council  were  held  in  a  filthy 
den  with  a  rough-cast  wall ;  though  the  best  houses  were  such  as 
would  now  be  called  hovels ;  though  the  best  roofs  were  of 
thatch  :  though  the  best  ceilings  were  of  bare  rafters  ;  though  the 
best  windows  were,  in  bad  weather,  closed  with  shutters  for  want 
of  glass  ;  though  the  humbler  dwellings  were  mere  heaps  of  turf, 
in  which  barrels  with  the  bottoms  knocked  out  served  the  pur- 
pose of  chimneys  ;  yet  to  the  mountaineer  of  the  Grampians 
this  city  was  as  Babylon  or  as  Tyre.  Nowhere  else  had  he  seen 
four  or  five  hundred  houses,  two  churches,  twelve  maltkilns, 
crowded  close  together.  Nowhere  else  had  he  been  dazzled  by 
the  splendour  of  rows  of  booths,  where  knives,  horn  spoons,  tin 
kettles,  and  gaudy  ribands  were  exposed  to  sale.  Nowhere  else 
had  he  been  on  board  of  one  of  those  huge  ships  which  brought 
sugar  and  wine  over  the  sea  from  countries  far  beyond  the  limits 
of  his  geography.*  It  is  not  strange  that  the  haughty  and  war- 
like Macdonalds,  despising  peaceful  industry,  yet  envying  the 
fruits  of  that  industry,  should  have  fastened  a  succession  of 
quarrels  on  the  people  of  Inverness.  In  the  reign  of  Charles 
the  Second,  it  had  been  apprehended  that  the  town  would  be 
stormed  and  plundered  by  those  rude  neighbours.  The  terms  of 
peace  which  they  offered  showed  how  little  they  regarded  the 
authority  of  the  prince  and  of  the  law.  Their  demand  was 
that  a  heavy  tribute  should  be  paid  to  them,  that  the  municipal 
magistrates  should  bind  themselves  by  an  oath  to  deliver  up  to 
the  vengeance  of  the  clan  every  burgher  who  should  shed  the 
blood  of  a  Macdonald,  and  that  every  burgher  who  should  any- 
where meet  a  person  wearing  the  Macdonald  tartan  should 
ground  arms  in  token  of  submission.  Never  did  Lewis  the 
Fourteenth,  not  even  when  he  was  encamped  between  Utrecht 

*  See  Burt's  Third  and  Fourth  Letters.  In  the  early  editions  is  an  engraving 
of  the  market  cross  of  Inverness,  and  of  that  part  of  the  street  where  the  mer- 
chants congregated. 

I  ought  here  to  acknowledge  my  obligations  to  Mr.  Robert  Carruthers,  who 
kindly  furnished  me  with  much  curious  information  about  Inverness,  and  with 
Borne  extracts  from  the  municipal  records. 


206  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

and  Amsterdam,  treat  the  States  General  with  such  despotic  in- 
solence.* By  the  intervention  of  the  Privy  Council  of  Scot- 
land, a  compromise  was  effected :  but  the  old  animosity  was  un- 
diminished. 

Common  enmities  and  common  apprehensions  produced  a 
good  understanding  between  the  town  and  the  clan  of  Mackintosh. 
The  foe  most  hated  and  dreaded  by  both  was  Colin  Macdonald 
of  Keppoch,  an  excellent  specimen  of  the  genuine  Highland 
Jacobite.  Keppoch's  whole  life  had  been  passed  in  insulting 
and  resisting  the  authority  of  the  Crown.  He  had  been  repeat- 
edly charged  on  his  allegiance  to  desist  from  his  lawless  prac- 
tices, but  had  treated  every  admonition  with  contempt.  The 
government,  however,  was  not  willing  to  resort  to  extremities 
against  him  ;  and  he  long  continued  to  rule  undisturbed  the 
stormy  peaks  of  Coryarrick,  and  the  gigantic  terraces  which 
still  mark  the  limits  of  what  was  once  the  Lake  of  Glenroy.  He 
was  famed  for  his  knowledge  of  all  the  ravines  and  caverns  of 
that  dreary  region  ;  and  such  was  the  skill  with  which  he  could 
track  a  herd  of  cattle  to  the  most  secret  hidingplace  that  he  was 
known  by  the  nickname  of  Coll  of  the  Cows.f  At  length  his 
outragous  violations  of  all  law  compelled  the  Privy  Council  to 
take  decided  steps.  He  was  proclaimed  a  rebel  :  letters  of  fire 
and  sword  were  issued  against  him  under  the  seal  of  James  ; 
and  a  few  weeks  before  the  Revolution,  a  body  of  royal  troops, 
supported  by  the  whole  strength  of  the  Mackintoshes,  marched 
into  Keppoch's  territories.  Keppoch  gave  battle  to  the  invaders, 
arid  was  victorious.  The  King's  forces  were  put  to  flight  ;  the 
King's  captain  was  slain  ;  and  this  by  a  hero  whose  loyalty  to 
the  King  many  writers  have  very  complacently  contrasted  with 
the  factious  turbulence  of  the  "Whigs,  t 

If  Keppoch  had  ever  stood  in  any  awe  of  the  government, 
he  was  completely  relieved  from  the  feeling  by  the  general 
anarchy  which  followed  the  revolution.  He  wasted  the  lands 
of  the  Mackintoshes,  advanced  to  Inverness,  and  threatened  the 

*  I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  Carruthers  for  a  copy  of  the  demands  of  the  Macdon- 
aids,  and  of  the  answer  of  the  Town  Council. 

t  Colt's  Deposition,  Appendix  to  the  Act.  Tail,  of  July  14,  1C90. 
t  See  the  Life  of  Sir  Ewan  Cameron. 


WILLIAM    AXD    MART.  297 

town  with  destruction.  The  danger  was  extreme.  The  houses 
were  surrounded  only  by  a  wall  which  time  and  weather  had  so 
loosened  that  it  shook  in  every  storm.  Yet  the  inhabitants 
showed  a  bold  front  ;  and  their  courage  was  stimulated  by  their 
preachers.  Sunday  the  twenty-eighth  of  April  was  a  day  of 
alarm  and  confusion.  The  savages  went  round  and  round  the 
small  colony  of  Saxons  like  a  troop  of  famished  wolves  round  a 
sheepfold.  Keppoch  threatened  and  blustered.  He  would 
come  in  with  all  his  men.  He  would  sack  the  place.  The 
burghers  meanwhile  mustered  in  arms  round  the  market  cross 
to  listen  to  the  oratory  of  their  ministers.  The  day  closed  with- 
out an  assault  :  the  Monday  and  the  Tuesday  passed  away  in 
intense  anxiety  ;  and  then  an  unexpected  mediator  made  his 
appearance. 

Dundee  after  his  flight  from  Edinburgh,  had  retired  to  his 
country  seat  in  that  valley  through  which  the  Glamis  descends 
to  the  ancient  castle  of  Macbeth.  Here  he  remained  quiet 
during  some  time.  He  protested  that  he  had  no  intention  of 
opposing  the  new  government.  He  declared  himself  ready  to 
return  to  Edinburgh,  if  only  he  could  be  assured  that  he  should 
be  protected  against  lawless  violence  ;  and  he  offered  to  give 
his  word  of  honour,  or,  if  that  were  not  sufficient  to  give  bail, 
that  he  would  keep  the  peace.  Some  of  his  old  soldiers  had 
accompanied  him,  and  formed  a  garrison  sufficient,  to  protect  his 
house  against  the  Presbyterians  of  the  neighbourhood.  Here 
he  might  possibly  have  remained  unharmed  and  harmless,  had 
not  an  event  for  which  he  was  not  answerable  made  his  enemies 
imptacable,  and  made  him  desperate.* 

An  emissary  of  James  had  crossed  from  Ireland  to  Scotland 
with  letters  addressed  to  Dundee  and  Balcarras.  Suspicion 
was  excited.  The  messenger  was  arrested,  interrogated,  and 
searched  ;  and  the  letters  were  found.  Some  of  them  proved  to 
be  from  Melfort  and  were  worthy  of  him.  Every  line  indicated 
those  qualities  which  had  made  him  the  abhorrence  of  his  coun- 
try, and  the  favourite  of  his  master.  He  announced  with  delight 
the  near  approach  of  the  day  of  vengeance  and  rapine,  of  the 

*  Balcarras's  Memoirs  ;  History  of  the  late  Revolution  in  Scotland. 


298  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

day  when  the  estates  of  the  seditious  would  be  divided  among  the 
loyal,  and  when  many  who  had  been  great  and  prosperous  would 
be  exiles  and  beggars.  The  king,  Melfort  said,  was  determined 
to  be  severe.  Experience  had  at  length  convinced  His  Majesty 
that  mercy  would  be  weakness.  Even  the  Jacobites  were  dis- 
gusted by  learning  that  a  restoration  would  be  immediately 
followed  by  a  confiscation  and  a  proscription.  Some  of  them 
pretended  to  suspect  a  forgery.  Others  did  not  hesitate  to  say 
that  Melfort  was  a  villain,  that  he  wished  to  ruin  Dundee  and 
Balcarras,  and  that,  for  that  end,  he  had  written  these  odious 
despatches,  and  had  employed  a  messenger  who  had  very  dex- 
terously managed  to  be  caught.  It  is  however  quite  certain 
that  Melfort  never  disavowed  these  papers,  and  that,  after  they 
were  published,  he  continued  to  stand  as  high  as  ever  in  the 
favour  of  James.  It  can  therefore  hardly  be  doubted  that  in 
those  passages  which  shocked  even  the  zealous  supporters  of 
hereditary  right,  the  Secretary  merely  expressed  with  fidelity 
the  feelings  and  intentions  of  his  master.*  Hamilton,  by  virtue 
of  the  powers  which  the  Estates  had,  before  their  adjournment, 
confided  to  him,  ordered  Balcarras  and  Dundee  to  be  arrested. 
Balcarras  was  taken,  and  was  confined,  first  in  his  own  house, 
and  then  in  the  Tolbooth  of  Edinburgh.  But  to  seize  Dundee 
was  not  so  easy  an  enterprise.  As  soon  as  he  heard  that  war- 
rants were  out  against  him,  he  crossed  the  Dee  with  his  follow- 
ers, and  remained  a  short  time  in  the  wild  domains  of  the  House 
of  Gordon.  There  he  held  some  -communication  with  the  Mac- 
donalds  and  Camerons  about  a  rising.  But  he  seems  at  this 
time  to  have  known  little  and  cared  little  about  the  Highlanders. 
For  their  national  character  he  probably  felt  the  dislike  of  a 
Saxon,  for  their  military  character  the  contempt  of  a  professional 
soldier.  He  soon  returned  to  the  Lowlands,  and  stayed  there 
till  he  learned  that  a  considerable  body  of  troops  had  been  sent 

*  There  is  among  the  Nairne  Papers  in  the  Bodleian  Library  a  curious  MS. 
entitled  '•  Journal de  ce  qui  s'est  passe  enlrlande  depuis  I'arrive'e  de  Sa  Majeste." 
In  this  journal  there  are  notes  and  corrections  in  English  and  French  ;  th« 
English  in  the  handwriting  of  James,  the  French  in  the  handwriting  of  Melfort. 
The  letters  intercepted  by  f  lamilton  are  mentioned,  and  mentioned  in  a  way  which 
plainly  shows  that  they  were  genuine  ;  nor  is  there  the  least  sign  that  James  dis- 
approved of  them. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  299 

to  apprehend  him.*  He  then  betook  himself  to  the  hill  country 
as  his  last  refuge,  pushed  northward  through  Strathdon  and 
Strathbogie,  crossed  the  Spey,  and  on  the  morning  of  the  first  of 
May,  arrived  with  a  small  baud  of  horsemen,  at  the  camp  of 
Keppoch  before  Inverness. 

The  new  situation  in  which  Dundee  was  now  placed,  the 
new  view  of  society  which  was  presented  to  him,  naturally  sug- 
gested new  projects  to  his  inventive  and  enterprising  spirit. 
The  hundreds  of  athletic  Celts  'whom  he  saw  in  their  national 
order  of  battle  were  evidently  not  allies  to  be  despised.  If  he 
could  form  a  great  coalition  of  clans,  if  he  could  muster  under 
one  banner  ten  or  twelve  thousand  of  those  hardy  warriors,  if 
he  could  induce  them  to  submit  to  the  restraints  of  discipline, 
what  a  career  might  be  before  him ! 

A  commission  from  King  James,  even  when  King  James 
was  securely  seated  on  the  throne,  had  never  been  regarded 
with  much  respect  by  Coll  of  the  Cows.  That  chief,  however, 
hated  the  Campbells  with  all  the  hatred  of  a  Macdonald,  and 
promptly  gave  in  his  adhesion  to  the  cause  of  the  House  of 
Stuart.  Dundee  undertook  to  settle  the  dispute  between  Kep- 
poch and  Inverness.  The  town  agreed  to  pay  two  thousand 
dollars,  a  sum  which,  small  as  it  might  be  in  the  estimation  of 
the  goldsmiths  of  Lombard  Street,  probably 'exceeded  any  treas- 
ure that  had  ever  been  carried  into  the  wilds  of  Coryarrick. 
Half  the  sum  was  raised,  not  without  difficulty,  by  the  inhabi- 
tants ;  and  Dundee  is  said  to  have  passed  his  word  for  the  re- 
mainder.t 

He  next  tried  to  reconcile  the  Macdonalds  with  the  Mack- 
intoshes, and  flattered  himself  that  the  two  warlike  tribe?,  lately 
arrayed  against  each  other,  might  be  willing  to  fight  side  by  r,ide 
under  his  command.  But  he  soon  found  that  it  was  no  light 

*  "  Nor  did  ever."  says  Bslcarras,  addressing  James,  "  the  Viscount  of  Dun- 
dee think  of  going  to  the  Highlands  without  further  orders  from  you,  till  a  party 
was  sent  to  apprehend  him." 

f  See  the  narrative  sent  to  James  in  Ireland  ard  received  by  him  July  7, 1G80. 
It  is  arrsong  the  Nairne  Pf.pers.  See  also  the  Memoirs  of  Dundee,  171  i  ;  Memoirs 
of  Sir  Ewan  Cameron  ;  Balcarras's  Memoirs  ;  Mae!c?,y's  Hemoi"S.  These  narra- 
tives do  not  perfectly  agree  with  each  other,  or  with  the  information  which  I 
obtained  from  Inverness. 


500  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

matter  to  take  up  a  Highland  feud.  About  the  rights  of  the 
contending  Kings  neither  clan  knew  anything  nor  cared  anything. 
The  conduct  of  both  is  to  be  ascribed  to  local  passions  and  in- 
terests. What  Argyle  was  to  Keppoch,  Keppoch  was  to  the 
Mackintoshes.  The  Mackintoshes  therefore  remained  neutral  ; 
and  their  example  was  followed  by  the  Macphersons,  another 
branch  of  the  race  of  the  wild  cat.  This  was  not  Dundee's  only 
disappointment.  The  Mackenzies,  the  Frasers,  the  Grants,  the 
Munros,  the  Mackays,  the  Macleods,  dwelt  at  a  great  distance 
from  the  territory  of  Mac  Callum  More.  They  had  no  dispute 
with  him  ;  they  owed  no  debt  to  him  ;  and  they  had  no  reason 
to  dread  the  increase  of  his  power.  They  therefore  did  not 
sympathise  with  his  alarmed  and  exasperated  neighbours,  and 
could  not  be  induced  to  join  the  confederacy  against  him.*  Those 
chiefs,  on  the  other  hand,  who  lived  nearer  to  Inverary,  and  to 
whom  the  name  of  Campbell  had  long  been  terrible  and  hateful, 
greeted  Dundee  eagerly,  and  promised  to  meet  him  at  the  head  of 
their  followers  on  the  eighteenth  of  May.  During  the  fortnight 
which  preceded  that  day,  he  traversed  Badenoch  and  Athol,  and 
exhorted  the  inhabitants  of  those  districts  to  rise  in  arms.  He 
dashed  into  the  Lowlands  with  his  horsemen,  surprised  Perth, 
and  carried  off  some  Whig  gentlemen  prisoners  to  the  mountains. 
Meanwhile  the  fiery  crosses  had  been  wandering  from  hamlet 
to  hamlet  over  all  the  heaths  and  mountains  thirty  miles  round 
Ben  Nevis  ;  and  when  he  reached  the  trysting  place  in  Lochaber 
he  found  that  the  gathering  had  begun.  The  head  quarters 
were  fixed  close  to  Lochiel's  house,  a  large  pile  built  entirely 
of  fir  wood,  and  considered  in  the  Highlands  as  a  superb  palace. 
Lochiel,  surrounded  by  more  than  six  hundred  broadswords, 
was  there  to  receive  his  guests.  Macnaghten  of  Macnaghten 
and  Stewart  of  Appin  were  at  the  muster  with  their  little  clans. 
Macdonald  of  Keppoch  led  the  warriors  who  had,  a  few  months 
before,  under  his  command,  put  to  flight  the  musketeers  of  King 
James.  Macdonald  of  Clanronald  was  of  tender  years  :  but  he 
was  brought  to  the  camp  by  his  uncle,  who  acted  as  Regent 

*  Memoirs  of  Dundee  ;  Tarbet  to  Melville,  1st  June  1689,  in  the  Leven  and 
Melville  Papers. 


WILLIAM    AND     MARY.  301 

during  the  minority.  The  youth  was  attended  by  a  picked  body 
guard  composed  of  his  own  cousins,  all  comely  in  appearance, 
and  good  men  of  their  hands.  Macdonald  of  Glengarry,  con- 
spicuous by  his  dark  brow  and  his  lofty  stature,  came  from  that 
great  valley  where  a  chain  of  lakes,  then  unknown  to  fame,  and 
scarcely  set  down  in  maps,  is  now  the  daily  highway  of  steam 
vessels  passing  and  repassing  between  the  Atlantic  and  the 
German  Ocean.  None  of  the  rulers  of  the  mountains  had  a 
higher  sense  of  his  personal  dignity,  or  was  more  frequently 
engaged  in  disputes  with  other  chiefs.  He  generally  affected  in 
his  manners  and  in  his  housekeeping  a  rudeness  beyond  that  of 
his  rude  neighbours,  and  professed  to  regard  the  very  few 
luxuries  which  had  then  found  their  way  from  the  civilised  parts 
of  the  world  into  the  Highlands  as  signs  of  the  effeminacy  and 
degeneracy  of  the  Gaelic  race.  But  on  this  occasion  he  chose 
to  imitate  the  splendour  of  Saxon  warriors,  and  rode  on  horse- 
back before  his  four  hundred  plaided  clansmen  in  a  steel  cuirass 
and  a  coat  embroidered  with  gold  lace.  Another  Macdonald, 
destined  to  a  lamentable  and  horrible  end,  led  a  band  of  hardy 
freebooters  from  the  dreary  pass  of  Glencoe.  Somewhat  later 
came  the  great  Hebridean  potentates.  Macdonald  of  Sleat,  the 
most  opulent  and  powerful  of  all  the  grandees  who  laid  claim 
to  the  lofty  title  of  Lord  of  the  Isles,  arrived  at  the  head  of 
seven  hundred  fighting  men  from  Sky.  A  fleet  of  long  boats 
brought  five  hundred  Macleans  from  Mull  under  the  command 

O 

of  their  chief,  Sir  John  of  Duart.  A  far  more  formidable  array 
had  in  old  times  followed  his  forefathers  to  battle.  But  the 
power,  though  not  the  spirit,  of  the  clan  had  been  broken  by 
the  arts  and  arms  of  the  Campbells.  Another  band  of  Macleans 
arrived  under  a  valiant  leader,  who  took  his  title  from  Lochbuy, 
which  is,  being  interpreted,  the  Yellow  Lake.* 

*  Narrative  in  the  Nairne  Papers  ;  Depositions  of  Colt,  Osburne,  Malcolm, 
and  Stewart  of  Ballacban  in  the  Appendix  to  the  Act  Parl.  of  July  14,  1690  ; 
Memoirs  of  Sir  Ewan  Cameron.  A  few  touches  I  have  taken  from  an  English 
translation  of  some  passages  in  a  lost  epic  poem  written  in  Latin,  and  called  the 
Grameis.  The  writer  was  a  zealous  Jacobite  named  Phillipps.  I  have  seldom 
made  use  of  the  Memoirs  of  Dundee,  printed  in  1714,  and  never  without  eome 
misgiving.  The  writer  was  certainly  not,  as  he  pretends,  one  of  Dundee's  offi- 
cers,- but  a  stupid  and  ignorant  Grub  Street  garreteer.  He  is  utterly  wrong  both 


302  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

It  does  not  appear  that  a  single  chief  who  had  not  some 
special  cause  to  dread  arid  detest  the  House  of  Argyle  obeyed 
Dundee's  summons.  There  is  indeed  strong  reason  to  believe 
that  the  chiefs  who  came  would  have  remained  quietly  at  home 
if  the  government  had  understood  the  politics  of  the  Highlands. 
Those  politics  were  thoroughly  understood  by  one  able  and  ex- 
perienced statesman,  sprung  from  the  great  Highland  family  of 
Mackenzie,  the  Viscount  Tarbet.  He  at  this  conjuncture 
pointed  out  to  Melville  by  letter,  and  to  Mackay  in  conversa- 
tion, both  the  cause  and  the  remedy  of  the  distempers  which 
seemed  likely  to  bring  on  Scotland  the  calamities  of  civil  war. 
There  was,  Tarbet  said,  no  general  disposition  to  insurrection 
among  the  Gael.  Little  was  to  be  apprehended  even  from  those 
popish  clans  which  were  under  no  apprehension  of  being  sub- 
jected to  the  yoke  of  the  Campbells.  It  was  notorious  that  the 
ablest  and  most  active  of  the  discontented  chiefs  troubled  them- 
selves not  at  all  about  the  questions  which  were  in  dispute 
between  the  Whigs  and  the  Tories.  Lochiel  in  particular, 
whose  eminent  personal  qualities  made  him  the  most  important 
man  among  the  mountaineers,  cared  no  more  for  James  than 
for  William.  If  the  Camerons,  the  Macdonalds,  and  the  Mac- 
leaus  could  be  convinced  that,  under  the  new  government,  their 
estates  and  their  dignities  would  be  safe,  if  Mac  Callum  More 
would  make  some  concessions,  if  Their  Majesties  would  take  on 
themselves  the  payment  of  some  arrears  of  rent,  Dundee  might 
call  the  clans  to  arms  :  but  he  would  call  to  little  purpose.  Five 
thousand  pounds,  Tarbet  thought,  would  be  sufficient  to  quiet 
all  the  Celtic  magnates  ;  and  in  truth,  though  that  sum  might 
seem  ludicrously  small  to  the  politicians  of  Westminster,  though 
it  was  not  larger  than  the  annual  gains  of  the  Groom  of  the 
Stole,  or  of  the  Paymaster  of  the  Forces,  it  might  well  be 
thought  immense  by  a  barbarous  potentate  who,  while  he  ruled 
hundreds  of  square  miles,  and  could  bring  hundreds  of  warriors 

as  to  the  place  and  as  to  the  time  of  the  most  important  of  all  the  events  which  he 
relates,  the  battle  of  Killiecraiikie.  He  says  that  it  was  fought  on  the  banks  of 
the  Tummell,  and  on  the  13th  of  June.  It  was  fought  on  the  banks  of  the  Garry, 
and  on  the  27th  of  July.  After  giving  such  a  specimen  of  inaccuracy  as  this,  it 
would  be  idle  to  point  out  minor  blunders. 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  303 

into  the  field,  had  perhaps  never  had  fifty  guineas  at  once  in  his 
coffers.* 

Though  Tarbet  was  considered  by  the  Scottish  ministers  of 
the  new  Sovereigns  as  a  very  doubtful  friend,  his  advice  was 
not  altogether  neglected.  It  was  resolved  that  overtures  such  as 
he  recommended  should  be  made  to  the  maleconteuts.  Much 
depended  on  the  choice  of  an  agent;  and  unfortunately  the 
choice  showed  how  little  the  prejudices  of  the  wild  tribes  of 
the  hills  were  understood  at  Edinburgh.  A  Campbell  was 
selected  for  the  office  of  gaining  over  to  the  cause  of  King 
William  men  whose  only  quarrel  to  King  William  was  that  he 
countenanced  the  Campbells.  Offers  made  through  such  a 
channel  were  naturally  regarded  as  at  once  snares  and  insults. 
After  this  it  was  to  no  purpose  that  Tarbet  wrote  to  Lochiel  and 
Mackay  to  Glengarry.  Lochiel  returned  no  answer  to  Tarbet ; 
and  Glengarry  returned  to  Mackay  a  coldly  civil  answer,  in 
which  the  general  was  advised  to  imitate  the  example  of  Monk.f 

Mackay,  meanwhile,  wasted  some  weeks  in  marching,  in 
countermarching  and  in  indecisive  skirmishing.  He  afterwards 
honestly  admitted  that  the  knowledge  which  he  had  acquired, 
during  thirty  years  of  military  service  on  the  Continent,  was,  in 
the  new  situation  in  wUich  he  was  placed,  useless  to  him.  It 
was  difficult  in  such  a  country  to  track  the  enemy.  It  was  im- 
possible to  drive  him  to  bay.  Food  for  an  invading  army  was 
not  to  be  found  in  the  wilderness  of  heath  and  shingle  ;  nor 
could  supplies  for  many  days  be  transported  far  over  quaking 
bogs  and  up  precipitous  ascents.  The  general  found  that  he 
had  tired  his  men  and  their  horses  almost  to  death,  and  yet  had 
effected  nothing.  Highland  auxiliaries  might  have  been  of  the 
greatest  use  to  him  :  but  he  had  few  such  auxiliaries.  The 
chief  of  the  Grants,  indeed,  who  had  been  persecuted  by  the  late 
government,  and  had  been  accused  of  conspiring  with  the  unfor- 
tunate Earl  of  Argyle,  was  zealous  on  the  side  of  the  Revolution. 

*  From  a  letter  of  Archibald  Earl  of  Argyle  to  Lauderdale,  which  bears  date 
the  25th  of  June  16C4,  it  appears  that  a  hundred  thousand  marks  Scots,  little 
more  than  five  thousand  pounds  sterling,  would,  at  that  time,  have  very  nearly 
satisfied  all  the  claims  of  Mac  Callum  More  0:1  his  neighbours. 

t  Mackay's  Memoirs  ;  Tarbet  to  Melville,  June  1,  16t<9,  in  the  Leven  and 
Melville  Papers  ;  Dundee  to  Melfoit,  June  27,  in  the  Nairne  Papers. 


304  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

Two  hundred  Mackays,  animated  probably  by  family  feeling, 
came,  from  the  northern  extremity  of  our  island,  where  at  mid- 
summer there  is  no  night,  to  fight  under  a  commander  of  their 
own  name  :  but  in  general  the  clans  which  took  no  part  in  the 
insurrection  awaited  the  event  with  cold  indifference,  and 
pleased  themselves  with  the  hope  that  they  should  easily  make 
their  peace  with  the  conquerors,  and  be  permitted  to  assist  in 
plundering  the  conquered. 

An  experience  of  little  more  than  a  month  satisfied  Mackay 
that  there  was  only  one  way  in  which  the  Highlands  could  be 
subdued.  It  was  idle  to  run  after  the  mountaineers  up  and  down 
their  mountains.  A  chain  of  fortresses  must  be  built  in  the 
most  important  situations,  and  must  be  well  garrisoned.  The 
place  with  which  the  general  proposed  to  begin  was  Inverlochy, 
where  the  huge  remains  of  an  ancient  castle  stood  and  still  stand. 
This  post  was  close  to  an  arm  of  the  sea,  and  was  in  the  heart 
of  the  country  occupied  by  the  discontented  clans.  A  strong 
force  stationed  there,  and  supported,  if  necessary,  by  ships  of  war, 
would  effectually  overawe  at  once  the  Macdonalds,  the  Camerons 
and  the  Macleans.* 

While  Mackay  was  representing  in  his  letters  to  the  council 
at  Edinburgh  the  necessity  of  adopting*  this  plan,  Dundee  was 
contending  with  difficulties  which  all  his  energy  and  dexterity 
could  not  completely  overcome. 

The  Highlanders,  while  they  continued  to  be  a  nation  living 
under  a  peculiar  polity  were  in  one  sense  better  and  in  another 
sense  worse  fitted  for  military  purposes  than  any  other  nation  in 
Europe.  The  individual  Celt  was  morally  and  physically  well 
qualified  for  war,  and  especially  for  war  in  so  wild  and  rugged  a 
country  as  his  own.  Pie  was  intrepid,  strong,  fleet,  patient  of 
cold,  of  hunger,  and  of  fatigue.  Up  steep  crags,  and  over 
treacherous  morasses,  he  moved  as  easily  as  the  French  household 
troops  paced  along  the  great  road  from  Versailles  to  Marli.  He 
was  accustomed  to  the  use  of  weapons  and  to  the  sight  of  blood  : 
he  was  a  fencer :  he  was  a  marksman  ;  and  before  het  had  ever 
stood  in  the  ranks,  he  was  already  more  than  half  a  soldier. 

*  See  Maekay's  Memoirs,  and  his  letter  to  Hamilton  of  tlie  14tli  of  June  1689. 


WILLIAM    AND    MAKY.  305 

As  the  individual  Celt  was  easily  turned  into  a  soldier,  so 
a  tribe  of  Celts  was  easily  turned  into  a  battalion  of  soldiers. 
All  that  was  necessary  was  that  the  military  organisation  should 
be  conformed  to  the  patriarchal  organisation.  The  Chief 
must  be  Colonel :  his  uncle  or  his  brother  must  be  Major  :  the 
tacksmen,  who  formed  what  may  be  called  the  peerage  of  the 
little  community,  must  be  the  Captains ;  the  company  of  each 
Captain  must  consist  of  those  peasants  who  lived  on  his  land, 
and  whose  names,  faces,  connections,  and  characters  were  per- 
fectly known  to  him :  the  subaltern  officers  must  be  selected 
a»nong  the  Duiuhe  Wassels,  proud  of  the  eagle's  feather :  the 
henchman  was  an  excellent  orderly :  the  hereditary  piper  and 
his  sons  formed  the  band  ;  and  the  clan  became  at  once  a  regi- 
ment. In  such  a  regiment  was  found  from  the  first  moment 
that  exact  order  and  prompt  obedience  in  which  the  strength 
of  regular  armies  consists.  Every  man,  from  the  highest  to  the 
lowest,  was  in  his  proper  place,  and  knew  that  place  perfectly. 
It  was  not  necessary  to  impress  by  threats  or  by  punishment 
on  the  newly  enlisted  troops  the  duty  of  regarding  as  their  head 
him  whom  they  had  regarded  as  their  head  ever  since  they 
could  remember  anything.  Every  private  had,  from  infancy, 
respected  his  corporal  much  and  his  Captain  more,  and  had  al 
most  adored  his  Colonel.  There  was  therefore  no  danger  of 
mutiny.  There  was  as  little  danger  of  desertion.  Indeed  the 
very  feelings  which  most  powerfully  impel  other  soldiers  to 
desert  kept  the  Highlander  to  his  standard.  If  he  left  it 
whither  was  he  to  go  ?  All  his  kinsmen,  all  his  friends,  were 
arrayed  round  it  To  separate  himself  from  it  was  to  separate 
himself  for  ever  from  his  family,  and  to  incur  all  the  misery  of 
that  very  homesickness  which,  in  regular  armies,  drives  so  many 
recruits  to  abscond  at  the  risk  of  stripes  and  of  death.  When 
these  things  are  fairly  considered,  it  will  not  be  thought  strange 
that  the  Highland  clans  should  have  occasionally  achieved  great 
martial  exploits. 

But  those  very  institutions  which   made  a  tribe  of  High- 
landers, all  bearing  the  same  name,  and  all  subject  to  the  same 
ruler,  so  formidable  in  battle,  disqualified  the  nation  for  war  on 
VOL.  III.— 20 


306  HISTORY   OP   ENGLAND. 

a  large  scale.  Nothing  was  easier  than  to  turn  clans  into 
efficient  regiments  ;  but  nothing  was  more  difficult  than  to  com- 
bine these  regiments  in  such  a  manner  as  to  form  an  efficient 
army.  From  the  shepherds  and  herdsmen  who  fought  in  the 
ranks  up  to  the  chiefs,  all  was  harmony  and  order.  Every 
man  looked  up  to  his  immediate  superior  ;  and  all  looked  up  to 
the  common  head.  But  with  the  chief  this  chain  of  subordina- 
tion ended.  He  knew  only  how  to  govern,  and  had  never 
learned  to  obey.  Even  to  royal  proclamations,  even  to  Acts 
of  Parliament,  he  was  accustomed  to  yield  obedience  only  when 
they  were  in  perfect  accordance  with  his  own  inclinations. 
It  was  not  to  be  expected  that  he  would  pay  to  any  delegated 
authority  a  respect  which  he  was  in  the  habit  of  refusing  to  the 
supreme  authority.  He  thought  himself  entitled  to  judge  of 
the  propriety  of  every  order  which  he  received.  "Of  his  brother 
chiefs,  some  were  his  enemies,  and  some  his  rivals.  It  was 
hardly  possible  to  keep  him  from  affronting  them,  or  to  con- 
vince him  that  they  were  not  affronting  him.  All  his  followers 
sympathised  with  all  his  animosities,  considered  his  honour  as 
their  own, and  were  ready  at  his  whistle  to  array  themselves  round 
him  in  arms  against  the  commander  in  chief.  There  was  there- 
fore very  little  chance  that  by  any  contrivance  any  five  clans 
could  be  induced  to  cooperate  heartily  with  one  another  during  a 
long  campaign.  The  best  chance,  however,  was  when  they  were 
led  by  a  Saxon.  It  is  remarkable  that  none  of  the  great  actions 
performed  by  the  Highlanders  during  our  civil  wars  was  per- 
formed under  the  command  of  a  Highlander.  Some  writers 
have  mentioned  it  as  a  proof  of  the  extraordinary  genius  of 
Montrose  and  Dundee  that  those  captains,  though  not  themselves 
of  Gaelic  race  or  speech,  should  have  been  able  to  form  and 
direct  confederacies  of  Gaelic  tribes.  But  in  truth  it  was  pre- 
cisely because  Montrose  and  Dundee  were  not  Highlanders  that 
they  were  able  to  lead  armies  composed  of  Highland  clans. 
Had  Montrose  been  chief  of  the  Carnerons,  the  Macdonalds 
would  never  have  submitted  to  his  authority.  Had  Dundee 
been  chief  of  Clanronald,  he  would  never  have  been  obeyed  by 
Glengarry.  Haughty  and  punctilious  men,  who  scarcely  ac- 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  307 

knowledged  the  King  to  be  their  superior,  would  not  have  en- 
dured the  superiority  of  a  neighbour,  an  equal,  a  competitor. 
They  could  far  more  easily  bear  the  preeminence  of  a  distin- 
guished stranger.  Yet  even  to  such  a  stranger  they  would  allow 
only  a  very  limited  and  a  very  precarious  authority.  To  bring 
a  chief  before  a  court  martial,  to  shoot  him,  to  cashier  him,  to 
degrade  him,  to  reprimand  him  publicly  was  impossible. 
Macdonald  of  Keppoch  or  Maclean  of  Duart  would  have 
struck  dead  any  officer  who  had  demanded  his  sword,  and  told 
him  to  consider  himself  as  under  arrest ;  and  hundreds  of  clay- 
mores would  instantly  have  been  drawn  to  protect  the  mur- 
derer. All  that  was  left  to  the  commander  under  whom  these 
potentates  condescended  to  serve  was  to  argue  with  them,  to 
supplicate  them,  to  flatter  them,  to  bribe  them  ;  and  it  was  only 
during  a  short  time  that  any  human  skill  could  preserve  bar- 
money  by  these  means.  For  every  chief  thought  himself  enti- 
tled to  peculiar  observance  ;  and  it  was  therefore  impossible  to 
pay  marked  court  to  any  one  without  disobliging  the  rest.  The 
general  found  himself  merely  the  president  of  a  congress  of  petty 
kings.  He  was  perpetually  called  upon  to  hear  and  to  compose 
disputes  about  pedigrees,  about  precedence,  about  the  division 
of  spoil.  His  decision,  be  it  what  it  might,  must  offend  somebody. 
At  any  moment  lie  might  hear  that  his  right  wing  had  fired  on 
his  centre  in  pursuance  of  some  quarrel  two  hundred  years  old, 
or  that  a  whole  battalion  had  marched  back  to  its  native  glen, 
because  another  battalion  had  been  put  in  the  post  of  honour. 
A  Highland  bard  might  easily  have  found  in  the  history  of  the 
year  1680  subjects  very  similar  to  those  with  which  the  war  of 
Troy  furnished  the  great  poets  of  antiquity.  One  day  Achilles 
is  sullen,  keeps  his  tent,  and  announces  his  intention  to  depart 
with  all  his  men.  The  next  day  Ajax  is  storming  about  the 
camp,  and  threatening  to  cut  the  throat  of  Ulysses. 

Hence  it  was  that,  though  the  Highlanders  achieved  some 
great  exploits  in  the  civil  wars  of  the  seventeenth  century,  those 
exploits  left  no  trace  which  could  be  discerned  after  the  lapse 
of  a  few  weeks.  Victories  of  strange  and  almost  portentous 
splendour  produced  all  the  consequences  of  defeat.  Veteran 


308  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

soldiers  and  statesmen  were  bewildered  by  those  sudden  turns 
of  fortune.  It  was  incredible  that  undisciplined  men  should 
have  performed  such  feats  of  arms.  It  was  incredible  that  such 
feats  of  arms,  having  been  performed,  should  be  immediately 
followed  by  the  triumph  of  the  conquered  and  the  submission 
of  the  conquerors.  Montrose,  having  passed  rapidly  from  vic- 
tory to  victory,  was,  in  the  full  career  of  success,  suddenly  aban- 
doned by  his  followers.  Local  jealousies  and  local  interests  had 
brought  his  army  together.  Local  jealousies  and  local  interests 
dissolved  it.  The  Gordons  left  him  because  they  fancied  that 
he  neglected  them  for  the  Macdonalds.  The  Macdonalds  left 
him  because  they  wanted  to  plunder  the  Campbells.  The  force 
which  had  once  seemed  sufficient  to  decide  the  fate  of  a  kingdom 
melted  away  in  a  few  days :  and  the  victories  of  Tippermuir 
and  Kilsyth  were  followed  by  the  disaster  of  Philiphaugh- 
Dundee  did  not  live  long  enough  to  experience  a  similar  reverse 
of  fortune  ;  but  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that,  had  his  life 
been  prolonged  one  fortnight,  his  history  would  have  been  the 
history  of  Montrose  retold. 

Dundee  made  one  attempt,  soon  after  the  gathering  of  the 
clans  in  Lochaber,  to  induce  them  to  submit  to  the  discipline  of 
a  regular  army.  lie  called  a  council  of  war  to  consider  this  sub- 
ject. His  opinion  was  supported  by  all  the  officers  who  had 
joined  him  from  the  low  country.  Distinguished  among  them 
were  James  Seton,  Earl  of  Dunfermline,  and  James  Galloway, 
Lord  Dunkeld.  The  Celtic  chiefs  took  the  other  side.  Loch- 
iel,  the  ablest  among  them,  was  their  spokesman,  and  argued  the 
point  with  much  ingenuity  and  natural  eloquence.  "  Our  sys- 
tem,"— such  was  the  substance  of  his  reasoning, — "  may  not  be 
the  best :  but  we  were  bred  to  it  from  childhood  :  we  under- 
stand it  perfectly :  it  is  suited  to  our  peculiar  institutions,  feel- 
ings, and  manners.  Making  war  after  our  own  fashion,  we  have 
the  expertness  and  coolness  of  veterans.  Making  war  in  any 
other  way,  we  shall  be  raw  and  awkward  recruits.  To  turn  us 
into  soldiers  like  those  of  Cromwell  and  Turenne  would  be  the 
business  of  years  :  and  we  have  not  even  weeks  to  spare.  We 
have  time  enough  to~  unlearn  our  own  discipline,  but  not  time 


WILLIAM   AXD    MART.  309 

enough  to  laarn  yours."  Dundee,  with  high  compliments  to 
Lochiel,  declared  himself  convinced,  and  perhaps  was  convinced : 
for  the  reasonings  of  the  wise  old  chief  were  by  no  means  with- 
out weight.*  - 

Yet  some  Celtic  usages  of  war  were  such  as  Dundee  could 
not  tolerate.  Cruel  as  he  was,  his  cruelty  always  had  a  method 
and  a  purpose.  He  still  hoped  that  he  might  be  able  to  win 
some  chiefs  who  remained  neutral ;  and  he  carefully  avoided 
every  act  which  could  goad  them  into  open  hostility.  This  was 
undoubtedly  a  policy  likely  to  promote  the  interest  of  James  ; 
but  the  interest  of  James  was  nothing  to  the  wild  marauders 
who  used  his  name  and  rallied  round  his  banner  merely  for  the 
purpose  of  making  profitable  forays  and  wreaking  old  grudges. 
Keppoch  especially,  who  hated  the  Mackintoshes  much  more 
than  he  loved  the  Stuarts,  not  only  plundered  the  territory  of 
his  enemies,  but  burned  whatever  he  could  not  carry  away. 
Dundee  was  moved  to  great  wrath  by  the  sight  of  the  blazing 
dwellings.  "  I  would  rather,"  he  said,  "  carry  a  musket  in  a 
respectable  regiment  than  be  captain  of  such  a  gang  of  thieves." 
Punishment  was  of  course  out  of  the  question.  Indeed  it  may 
be  considered  as  a  remarkable  proof  of  the  general's  influence 
that  Coll  of  the  Cows  deigned  to  apologise  for  conduct  for 
which,  in  a  well  governed  army,  he  would  have  been  shot.f 

As  the  Grants  were  in  arms  for  King  William,  their  prop- 
erty was  considered  as  fair  prize.  Their  territory  was  in- 
vaded by  a  party  of  Camerons  :  a  skirmish  took  place :  some 
blood  was  shed ;  and  many  cattle  were  carried  off  to  Dundee's 
camp,  where  provisions  were  greatly  needed.  This  raid  pro- 
duced a  quarrel,  the  history  of  which  illustrates  in  the  most 
striking  manner  the  character  of  a  Highland  army.  Among 
those  who  were  slain  in  resisting  the  Camerons  was  a  Mac- 
donald  of  the  Glengarry  branch,  who  had  long  resided  among 
the  Grants,  had  become  in  feelings  and  opinions  a  Grant,  and 
had  absented  himself  from  the  muster  of  his  tribe.  Though  he 
had  been  guilty  of  a  high  offence  against  the  Gaelic  code  of 
honour  and  morality,  his  kinsmen  remembered  the  sacred  tie 
*  Memoirs  of  Sir  Ewan  Cameron.  t  Ibid. 


310  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 


he  had  forgotten.  Good  or  bad,  he  was  bone  of  their 
bone:  he  was  flesh  of  their  flesh;  and  he  should  have  been 
reserved  for  their  justice.  The  name  which  he  bore,  the  blood 
of  the  Lords  of  the  Isles,  should  have  been  his  protection. 
Glengarry  in  a  rage  went  to  Dundee  and  demanded  vengeance 
on  Lochiel  and  the  whole  race  of  Cameron.  Dundee  replied 
that  the  unfortunate  gentleman  who  had  fallen  was  a  traitor  to 
the  clan  as  well  as  to  the  King.  Was  it  ever  heard  of  in  war 
that  the  person  of  an  enemy,  a  combatant  in  arms,  was  to  be 
held  inviolable  on  account  of  his  name  and  descent?  And, 
even  if  wrong  had  been  done,  how  was  it  to  be  redressed  ?  Half 
the  army  must  slaughter  the  other  half  before  a  finger  could  be 
laid  on  Lochiel.  Glengarry  went  away  raging  like  a  madman. 
Since  his  complaints  were  disregarded  by  those  who  ought  to 
right  him,  he  would  right  himself  :  he  would  draw  out  his  men, 
and  fall  sword  in  hand  on  the  murderers  of  his  cousin.  During 
some  time  he  would  listen  to  no  expostulation.  When  he  was 
reminded  that  Lochiel's  followers  were  in  number  nearly  double 
of  the  Glengarry  men,  "  No  matter,"  he  cried,  "  one  Macdonald 
is  worth  two  Camerons."  Had  Lochiel  been  equally  irritable 
and  boastful,  it  is  probable  that  the  Highland  insurrection 
would  have  given  little  more  trouble  to  the  government,  and 
that  the  rebels  would  have  perished  obscurely  in  the  wilderness 
by  one  another's  claymores.  But  nature  had  bestowed  on  him 
in  large  measure  the  qualities  of  a  statesman,  though  fortune 
had  hidden  those  qualities  in  an  obscure  corner  of  the  world. 
He  saw  that  this  was  not  a  time  for  brawling;  his  own  character 
for  courage  had  long  been  established  ;  and  his  temper  was 
under  strict  government.  The  fury  of  Glengarry,  not  being  in- 
flamed by  any  fresh  provocation,  rapidly  abated.  Indeed  there 
were  some  who  suspected  that  he  had  never  been  quite  so  pug- 
nacious as  he  had  affected  to  be,  and  that  his  bluster  was  meant 
only  to  keep  up  his  own  dignity  in  the  eyes  of  his  retainers. 
However  this  might  be,  the  quarrel  was  composed  ;  and  the 
two  chiefs  met  with  the  outward  show  of  civility  at  the  general's 
table.* 

*  Memoirs  of  SirEwan  Cameron. 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  311 

What  Dundee  saw  of  his  Celtic  allies  must  have  made  him 
desirous  to  have  in  his  army  some  troops  on  whose  obedience 
he  could  depend,  and  who  would  not,  at  a  signal  from  their 
colonel,  turn  their  arras  against  their  general  and  their  king. 
He  accordingly,  during  the  months  of  May  and  June,  sent  to 
Dublin  a  succession  of  letters  earnestly  imploring  assistance. 
If  six  thousand,  four  thousand,  three  thousand,  regular  soldiers 
were  now  sent  to  Lochaber,  he  trusted  that  His  Majesty  would 
soon  hold  a  court  in  Holyrood.  That  such  a  force  might  be 
spared  hardly  admitted  of  a  doubt.  The  authority  of  James 
was  at  that  time  acknowledged  in  every  part  of  Ireland,  except  on 
the  shores  of  Lough  Erne  and  behind  the  ramparts  of  London- 
derry. He  had  in  that  kingdom  an  army  of  forty  thousand 
men.  An  eighth  part  of  such  an  army  would  scarcely  be  missed 
there,  and  might,  united  with  the  clans  which  were  in  insurrec- 
tion, effect  great  things  in  Scotland. 

Dundee  received  such  answers  to  his  applications  as  en- 
couraged him  to  hope  that  a  large  and  well  appointed  force 
would  soon  be  sent  from  Ulster  to  join  him.  He  did  not  wish  to 
try  the  chance  of  battle  before  these  succours  arrived.*  Mac- 
kay,  on  the  other  hand,  was  weary  of  marching  to  and  fro  in  a 
desert.  His  men  were  exhausted  and  out  of  heart.  He  thought 

O 

it  desirable  that  they  should  withdraw  from  the  hill  country, 
and  William  was  of  the  same  opinion. 

In  June  therefore  the  civil  war  was,  as  if  by  concert  be- 
tween the  generals,  completely  suspended.  D.undee  remained 
in  Lochaber,  impatiently  awaiting  the  arrival  of  troops  and  sup- 
plies from  Ireland.  It  was  impossible  for  him  to  keep  his 
Highlanders  together  in  a  state  of  inactivity.  A  vast  extent  of 
moor  and  mountain  was  required  to  furnish  food  for  so  many 
mouths.  The  clans  therefore  went  back  to  their  own  glens, 
having  promised  to  reassemble  on  the  first  summons. 

Meanwhile  Mackay's  soldiers,  exhausted  by  severe  exer- 
tions and  privations,  were  taking  their  ease  in  quarters'  scat- 
tered over  the  low  country  from  Aberdeen  to  Stirling.  Mackay 
himself  was  at  Edinburgh,  and  was  urging  the  ministers 
*  Dundeo  to  Melfort,  Jure  27,  1689. 


312  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

there  to  furnish  him  with  the  means  of  constructing  a  chain 
of  fortifications  among  the  Grampians.  The  ministers  had,  it 
should  seem,  miscalculated  their  military  resources.  It  had 
been  expected  that  the  Campbells  would  take  the  field  in  such 
force  as  would  balance  the  whole  strength  of  the  clans  which 
marched  under  Dundee.  It  had  also  been  expected  that  the 
Covenanters  of  the  West  would  hasten  to  swell  the  ranks  of 
the  army  of  King  William.  Both  expectations  were  disappoint- 
ed. Argyle  had  found  his  principality  devastated,  and  his  tribe 
disarmed  and  disorganised.  A  considerable  time  must  elapse 
before  his  standard  would  be  surrounded  by  an  array  such  as 
his  forefathers  had  led  to  battle.  The  Covenanters  of  the 
West  were  in  general  unwilling  to  enlist.  They  were  assuredly 
not  wanting  in  courage  ;  and  they  hated  Dundee  with  deadly 
hatred.  In  their  part  of  the  country  the  memory  of  his  cruelty 
was  still  fresh.  Every  village  had  its  own  tale  of  blood.  The 
greyheaded  father  was  missed  in  one  dwelling,  the  hopeful 
stripling  in  another.  It  was  remembered  but  too  well  how  the 
dragoons  had  stalked  into  the  peasant's  cottage,  cursing  and 
damning  him,  themselves,  and  each  other  at  every  second  word, 
pushing  from  the  ingle  nook  his  gi'andmother  of  eight}7,  and 
thrusting  their  hands  into  the  bosom  of  his  daughter  of  sixteen  ; 
how  the  abjuration  had  been  tendered  to  him  ;  how  he  had  folded 
his  arms  and  said  "  God's  will  be  done  "  ;  how  the  Colonel  had 
called  for  a  file  with  loaded  muskets ;  and  how  in  three  minutes 
the  good  man  of  the  house  had  been  wallowing  in  a  pool  of 
blood  at  his  own  door.  The  seat  of  the  martyr  was  still  vacant 
at  the  fireside  ;  and  every  child  could  point  out  his  grave  still 
green  amidst  the  heath.  When  the  people  of  this  region  called 
their  oppressor  a  servant  of  the  devil,  they  were  not  speaking 
figuratively.  They  believed  that  between  the  bad  man  and 
the  bad  angel  there  was  a  close  alliance  on  definite  terms; 
that  Dundee  had  bound  himself  to  do  the  work  of  hell  on 
earth,  and  that,  for  high  purposes,  hell  was  permitted  to  pro- 
tect its  slave  till  the  measure- of  his  guilt  should  be  full.  But, 
intensely  as  these  men  abhorred  Dundee,  most  of  them  had 
a  scruple  about  drawing  the  sword  for  William.  A  great 


WILLIAM 


AND    MART.  313 


meeting  was  held  in  the  parish  church  of  Douglas  :  and  the 
question  was  propounded,  whether,  at  a  time  when  war  was 
in  the  land,  and  when  an  Irish  invasion  was  expected,  it  were 
not  a  duty  to  take  arms.  The  debate  was  sharp  and  tumul- 
tuous. The  orators  on  one  side  adjured  their  brethren  not  to 
incur  the  curse  denounced  against  the  inhabitants  of  Meroz, 
who  came  not  to  the  help  of  the  Lord  against  the  mighty. 
The  orators  on  the  other  side  thundered  against  sinful  asso- 
ciations. There  were  malignants  in  William's  army  :  Mackay's 
own  orthodoxy  was  problematical :  to  take  military  service 
with  such  comrades,  and  under  such  a  general,  would  be  a  sin- 
ful association.  At  length  after  much  wrangling,  and  amidst 
great  confusion,  a  vote  was  taken  ;  and  the  majority  pro- 
nounced that  to  take  military  service  would  be  a  sinful  associa- 
tion. There  was  however  a  large  minority ;  and,  from  among 
the  members  of  this  minority,  the  Earl  of  Angus  was  able  to 
raise  a  body  of  infantry,  which  is  still,  after  the  lapse  of  more 
than  a  hundred  and  sixty  years,  known  by  the  name  of  the 
Cameronian  Regiment.  The  first  Lieutenant  Colonel  was 
Cleland,  that  implacable  avenger  of  blood  who  had  driven 
Dundee  from  th3  Convention.  There  was  no  small  difficulty 
in  filling  the  ranks  ;  for  many  West  country  Whigs,  who  did 
not  think  it  absolutely  sinful  to  enlist,  stood  out  for  terms 
subversive  of  all  military  discipline.  Some  would  not  serve 
under  any  colonel,  major,  captain,  sergeant,  or  corporal,  who 
was  not  ready  to  sign  the  Covenant.  Others  insisted  that,  if 
it  should  be  found  absolutely  necessary  to  appoint  any  officer 
who  had  taken  the  tests  imposed  in  the  late  reign,  he  should 
at  least  qualify  himself  for  command  by  publicly  confessing 
his  sin  at  the  head  of  the  regiment.  Most  of  the  enthusiasts 
who  had  proposed  these  conditions  were  induced  by  dexterous 
management  to  abate  much  of  their  demands.  Yet  the  new 
regiment  had  a  very  peculiar  character.  The  soldiers  were  all 
rigid  Puritans.  One  of  their  first  acts  was  to  petition  the  Par- 
liament that  all  drunkenness,  licentiousness,  and  profane- 
ness  might  be  severely  punished.  Their  own  conduct  must 
have  been  exemplary  :  for  the  worst  crime  which  the  most 


314  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

austere  bigotry  could  impute  to  them  was  that  "of  huzzaing  on 
the  King's  birthday.  It  was  originally  intended  that  with 
the  military  organisation  of  the  corps  should  be  interwoven 
the  organisation  of  a  Presbyterian  congregation.  Each  com 
pany  was  to  furnish  an  elder ;  and  the  elders  were,  with  the 
chaplain,  to  form  an  ecclesiastical  court  for  the  suppression 
of  immorality  and  heresy.  Elders,  however,  were  not  ap- 
pointed :  but  a  noted  hill  preacher,  Alexander  Shields,  was 
called  to  the  office  of  chaplain.  It  is  not  easy  to  conceive 
that  fanaticism  can  be  heated  to  a  higher  temperature  than  that 
which  is  indicated  by  the  writings  of  Shields.  According  to 
him,  it  should  seem  to  be  the  first  duty  of  a  Christian  ruler  to 
persecute  to  tho  death  every  heterodox  subject,  and  the  first 
duty  of  a  Christian  subject  to  poniard  a  heterodox  ruler.  Yet 
there  was  then  in  Scotland  an  enthusiasm  compared  with  which 
the  enthusiasm  even  of  this  man  was  lukewarm.  The  extreme 
Covenanters  protested  against  his  defection  as  vehemently  as  he 
had  protested  against  the  Black  Indulgence  and  the  oath  of 
supremacy,  and  pronounced  every  man  who  entered  Angus's 
regiment  guilty  of  a  wicked  confederacy  with  malignants.* 

Meanwhile  Edinburgh  Castle  had  fallen,  after  holding  out 
more  than  two  months.  Both  the  defence  and  the  attack  had 
been  languidly  conducted.  The  Duke  of  Gordon,  unwilling  to 
incur  the  mortal  hatred  of  those  at  whose  mercy  his  lands  and 
life  might  soon  be,  did  not  choose  to  batter  the  city.  The  as- 
sailants, on  the  other  hand,  carried  on  their  operations  with  so 
little  energy  and  so  little  vigilance  that  a  constant  communica- 
tion was  kept  up  between  the  Jacobites  within  the  citadel  and 
the  Jacobites  without.  Strange  stories  were  told  of  the  polite 
and  facetious  messages  which  passed  between  the  besieged  and 

*  See  Faithful  Contendings  Displayed,  particularly  the  proceedings  of  April 
29  and  30  and  of  May  13,  and  14,  1G89  ;  the  petition  to  Parliament  drawn  up  by 
the  regiment,  on  July  18,  1CS9 ;  the  protestation  of  Sir  Robert  Hamilton  of 
November  6,  1689  ;  and  the  admonitory  Epistle  to  the  Regiment,  dated  March  27, 
1690.  The  Society  people,  as  they  called  themselves,  seem  to  have  been  espe- 
cially shocked  by  the  way  in  which  the  King's  birthday  had  been  kept.  "We 
nope,"  they  wrote,  "  ye  are  against  observing  anniversary  days  as  well  as  we, 
and  that  ye  will  r.iowrn  for  what  ye  have  done."  As  to  the  opinions  and  temper 
of  Alexander  Shields,  see  his  Hind  Let  Loose. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  315 

the  besiegers.  On  one  occasion  Gordon  sent  to  inform  the  ma- 
gistrates that  he  was  going  to  fire  a  salute  on  account  of  some 
news  which  he  had  received  from  Ireland,  but  that  the  good 
town  need  not  be  alarmed,  for  that  his  guns  would  not  be  load- 
ed with  ball.  Ou  another  occasion,  his  drums  beat  a  parley  ; 
the  white  flag  was  hung  out :  a  conference  took  place ;  and  he 
gravely  informed  the  enemy  that  all  his  cards  had  been  thumbed 
to  pieces,  and  begged  to  have  a  few  more  packs.  His  friends 
established  a  telegraph  by  means  of  which  they  conversed  with 
him  across  the  lines  of  sentinels.  From  a  window  in  the  top 
story  of  one  of  the  loftiest  of  those  gigantic  houses,  a  few  of 
which  still  darken  the  High  Street,  a  white  cloth  was  hung  out 
when  all  was  well,  and  a  black  cloth  when  things  went  ill.  If 
it  was  necessary  to  give  more  detailed  information,  a  board  was 
held  up  inscribed  with  capital  letters  so  large  that  they  could, 
by  the  help  of  a  telescope,  be  read  on  the  ramparts  of  the  castle. 
Agents  laden  with  letters  and  fresh  provisions  managed,  in  va- 
rious disguises  and  by  various  shifts,  to  cross  the  sheet  of  water 
which  then  lay  on  the  north  of  the  fortress  and  to  clamber  up 
the  precipitous  ascent.  The  peal  of  a  musket  from  a  particular 
half  moon  was  the  signal  which  announced  to  the  friends  of  the 
House  of  Stuart  that  another  of  their  emissaries  had  got  safe  tip 
the  rock.  But  at  length  the  supplies  were  exhausted  ;  and  it 
was  necessary  to  capitulate.  Favourable  terms  were  readily 
granted :  the  garrison  marched  out ;  and  the  keys  were  de- 
livered up  amidst  the  acclamations  of  a  great  multitude  of 
burghers.* 

But  the  government  had  far  more  acrimonious  and  more 
pertinacious  enemies  in  the  Parliament  House  than  in  the  Cas- 
tle. When  the  Estates  reassembled  after  their  adjournment, 
the  crown  and  sceptre  of  Scotland  were  displayed  with  the  won- 
ted pomp  in  the  hall  as  types  of  the  absent  sovereign.  Hamil- 
ton rode  in  state  from  Holy  rood  up  the  High  Street  as  Lord 
High  Commissioner  ;  and  Crawford  took  the  chair  as  President. 
Two  Acts,  ono  turning  the  Convention  into  a  Parliament,  the 

*  Siege  of  the  Castle  of  Edinburgh,  printed  for  the  Bannatyne  Club  ;    Lond. 
Gaz.  June  10-20, 1669. 


316  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

other  recognising  William  and  Mary  as  King  and  Queen,  were 
rapidly  passed  and  touched  with  the  sceptre  ;  and  then  the  con- 
flict of  factions  began.* 

It  speedily  appeared  that  the  opposition  which  Montgomery 
had  organised  was  irresistibly  strong.  Though  made  up  of 
many  conflicting  elements,  Republicans,  Whigs,  Tories,  zealous 
Presbyterians,  bigoted  Prelatists,  it  acted  for  a  time  as  one  man, 
and  drew  to  itself  a  multitude  of  those  mean  and  timid  politi- 
cians who  naturally  gravitate  towards  the  stronger  party.  The 
friends  of  the  government  were  few  and  disunited.  Hamilton 
brought  but  half  a  heart  to  the  discharge  of  his  duties.  He  had 
always  been  unstable ;  and  he  was  now  discontented.  He  held 
indeed  the  highest  place  to  which  a  subject  could  aspire.  But 
he  imagined  that  he  had  only  the  show  of  power  while  others 
enjoyed  the  substance,  and  was  not  sorry  to  see  those  of  whom 
he  was  jealous  thwarted  and  annoyed.  He  did  not  absolutely 
betray  the  prince  whom  he  represented  :  but  he  sometimes  tam- 
pered with  the  chiefs  of  the  Club,  and  sometimes  did  sly  ill 
turns  to  those  who  were  joined  with  him  in  the  service  of  the 
Crown. 

His  instructions  directed  him  to  give  the  royal  assent  to  laws 
for  the  mitigating  or  removing  of  numerous  grievances,  and 
particularly  to  a  law  restricting  the  power  and  reforming  the 
constitution  of  the  Committee  of  Articles,  and  to  a  law  establish- 
ing the  Presbyterian  Church  Government.!  But  it  mattered 
not  what  his  instructions  were.  The  chiefs  of  the  Club  were 
bent  on  finding  a  cause  of  quarrel.  The  propositions  of  the 
Government  touching  the  Lords  of  the  Articles  were  contemp- 
tuously rejected.  Hamilton  wrote  to  London  for  fresh  directions; 
and  soon  a  second  plan,  which  left  little  more  than  the  name  of 
the  once  despotic  Committee,  was  sent  back.  But  the  second 
plan,  though  such  as  would  have  contented  judicious  and  tem- 
perate reformers,  shared  the  fate  of  the  first.  Meanwhile  the 
chiefs  of  the  Club  laid  on  the  table  a  law  which  interdicted  the 
King  from  ever  employing  in  any  public  office  any  person  who 

*  Act.  Parl.  Scot.,  June  5,  June  17,  1689. 

•*  The  instructions  will  be  found  among  the  Somers  Tracts. 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  317 

had  ever  borne  any  part  in  any  proceeding  inconsistent  with  the 
Claim  of  Rfght,  or  who  had  ever  obstructed  or  retarded  any  good 
design  of  the  Estates.  This  law,  uniting,  within  a  very  short 
compass,  almost  all  the  faults  which  a  law  can  have,  was  well 
known  to  be  aimed  at  the  Lord  President  of  the  Court  of  Ses- 
sion, and  at  his  son  the  Lord  Advocate.  Their  prosperity  and 
power  made  them  objects  of  envy  to  every  disappointed  candi- 
date for  office.  That  they  were  new  men,  the  first  of  their  race 
who  had  risen  to  distinction,  and  that  nevertheless  they  had,  by 
the  mere  force  of  ability,  become  as  important  in  the  state  as  the 
Duke  of  Hamilton  or  the  Earl  of  Argyle,  was  a  thought  which 
galled  the  heSrts  of  many  needy  and  haughty  patricians.  To  the 
Whigs  of  Scotland  the  Dalrymples  were  what  Halifax  and 
Caermarthen  were  to  the  Whigs  of  England.  Neither  the  exile 
of  Sir  James,  nor  the  zeal  with  which  Sir  John  had  promoted 
the  Revolution,  was  received  as  an  atonement  for  old  delinquency. 
They  had  both  served  the  bloody  and  idolatrous  House.  They 
had  both  oppressed  the  people  of  God.  Their  late  repentance 
might  perhaps  give  them  a  fair  claim  to  pardon,  but  surely  gave 
them  no  rijjht  to  honours  and  rewards. 

O 

The  friends  of  the  government  in  vain  attempted  to  divert 
the  attention  of  the  Parliament  from  the  business  of  persecuting 
the  Dalrymple  family  to  the  important  and  pressing  question  of 
Church  Government.  They  said  that  the  old  system  had  been 
abolished  ;  that  no  other  system  had  been  substituted ;  that  it 
was  impossible  to  say  what  was  the  established  religion  of  the 
kingdom ;  and  that  the  first  duty  of  the  legislature  was  to  put 
an  end  to  an  anarchy  which  was  daily  producing  disasters  and 
crimes.  The  leaders  of  the  Club  were  not  to  be  so  drawn  away 
from  their  object.  It  was  moved  and  resolved  that  the  considera- 
tion of  ecclesiastical  affairs  should  be  postponed  till  secular 
affairs  had  been  settled.  The  unjust  and  absurd  Act  of  Inca- 
pacitation  was  carried  by  seventy-four  voices  to  twenty-four. 
Another  vote  still  more  obviously  aimed  at  the  House  of  Stair 
speedily  followed.  The  Parliament  laid  claim  to  a  Veto  on  the 
nomination  of  the  Judges,  and  assumed  the  power  of  stopping  the 
signet,  in  other  words,  of  suspending  the  whole  administration  of 


318  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

justice,  till  this  claim  should  be  allowed.  It  was  plain  from  what 
passed  iii  debate,  that  though  the  chiefs  of  the  Club  had  begun 
with  the  Court  of  Session,  they  did  not  mean  to  end  there.  The 
arguments  used  by  Sir  Patrick  Hume  and  others  led  directly  to 
the  conclusion  th«.t  the  King  ought  not  to  have  the  appointment 
of  any  great  public  functionary.  Sir  Patrick  indeed  avowed, 
both  in  speech  and  in  writing,  his  opinion  that  the  whole  patron- 
age of  the  realm  ought  to  be  transferred  from  the  Crown  to  the 
Estates.  When  the  place  of  Treasurer,  of  Chancellor,  of  Secre- 
tary, was  vacant,  the  Parliament  ought  to  submit  two  or  three 
names  to  His  Majesty  ;  and  one  of  those  names  His  Majesty 
ought  to  be  bound  to  select.*  • 

All  this  time  the  Estates  obstinately  refused  to  grant  any 
supply  till  their  Acts  should  have  been  touched  with  the  sceptre. 
The  Lord  High  Commissioner  was  at  length  so  much  provoked 
by  their  perverseness  that,  after  long  temporising,  he  refused  to 
touch  even  Acts  which  were  in  themselves  unobjectionable,  and 
to  which  his  instructions  empowered  him  to  consent.  This  state 
of  things  would  have  ended  in  some  great  convulsion,  if  the  King 
of  Scotland  had  not  been  also  King  of  a  much  greater  and  more 
opulent  kingdom.  Charles  the  First  had  never  found  any  par- 
liament at  Westminster  more  unmanageable  than  William,  dur- 
ing this  session,  found  the  parliament  at  Edinlmrgh.  But  it  was 
not  in  the  power  of  the  parliament  at  Edinburgh  to  put  on 
William  such  a  pressure  as  the  parliament  at  Westminster  had 
put  on  Charles.  A  refusal  of  supplies  at  Westminster  was  a 
serious  thing,  and  left  the  Sovereign  no  choice  except  to  yield, 
or  to  raise  money  by  unconstitutional  means.  But  a  refusal  of 
supplies  at  Edinburgh  reduced  him  to  no  such  dilemma.  The 
largest  sum  that  he  could  hope  to  receive  from  Scotland  in  a 
year  was  less  than  what  he  received  from  England  every  fort- 
night. He  had  therefore  only  to  entrench  himself  within  the 
limits  of,his  undoubted  prerogative,  and  there  to  remain  on  the 
defensive,  till  some  favourable  conjuncture  should  arrive/)" 

*  As  to  Sir  Patrick's  views,  see  his  letter  of  the  7th  of  June,  and  Lockhart'a 
letter  of  the  llth  of  July,  in  the  Leven  and  Melville  Papers. 

t  My  chief  materials  for  the  history  of  this  session  have  been  the  Acts,  the 
Minutes,  and  the  Leven  and  Melville  Papers. 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  319 

"While  these  things  were  passing  in  the  Parliament  House, 
the  civil  war  in  the  Highlands,  having  been  during  a  few  weeks 
suspended,  broke  forth  again  more  violently  than  before.  Since 
the  splendour  of  the  House  of  Argyle  had  been  eclipsed,  no 
Gaelic  chief  could  vie  in  power  with  the  Marquess  of  Athol. 
The  district  from  which  he  took  his  title,  and  of  which  he  might 
almost  be  called  the  sovereign,  was  in  extent  larger  than  an  or- 
dinary county,  and  was  more  fertile,  more  diligently  cultivated, 
and  more  thickly  peopled  than  the  greater  part  of  the  Highlands. 
The  men  who  followed  his  banner  were  supposed  to  be  not  less 
numerous  than  all  the  Macdonalds  and  Macleans  united,  and 
were,  in  strength  and  courage,  inferior  to  no  tribe  in  the  moun- 
tains. But  the  clan  had  been  made  insignificant  by  the  insigni- 
ficance of  the  chief.  The  Marquess  was  the  falsest,  the  most  fickle, 
the  most  pusillanimous,  of  mankind.  Already,  in  the  shorj;  space 
of  six  months,  he  had  been  several  times  a  Jacobite,  and  several 
times  a  Williamite.  Both  Jacobites  and  Williamites  regarded  him 
with  contempt  and  distrust,  which  respect  for  his  immense  power 
prevented  them  from  fully  expressing.  After  repeatedly  vowing 
fidelity  to  both  parties,  and  repeatedly  betraying  both,  he  began 
to  think  that  he  should  best  provide  for  his  safety  by  abdicating 
the  functions  both  of  a  peer  and  of  a  chieftain,  by  absenting 
himself  both  from  the  Parliament  House  at  Edinburgh  and  from 
his  castle  in  the  mountains,  and  by  quitting  the  country  to  which 
he  was  bound  by  every  tie  of  duty  and  honour  at  the  very  crisis 
of  her  fate.  While  all  Scotland  was  waiting  with  impatience 
and  anxiety  to  see  in  which  army  his  numerous  retainers  would 
be  arrayed,  he  stole  away  to  England,  settled  himself  at  Bath, 
and  pretended  to  drink  the  waters.*  His  principality,  left  with- 
out a  head,  was  divided  against  itself.  The  general  leaning  of 
the  Athol  men  was  towards  King  James.  For  they  had  been 
employed  by  him,  only  four  years  before,  as  the  ministers  of 
his  vengeance  against  the  House  of  Argyle.  They  had  garri- 


*  "Athol,"  says  Dundee  contemptuously,  "is  gone  to  England,  who  did  not 
know  what  to  do." — Dundee  to  Melfort,  June  27,  1689.  See  Athol's  letters  to 
Melville  of  the  21st  of  May  aiid  the  8th  of  Juiie,  in  the  Leveii  and  Melville 
Papers. 


320  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

soned  Inverary :  they  had  ravaged  Lorn  :  they  had  demolished 
houses,  cut  down  fruit  trees,  burned  fishing  boats,  broken  mill- 
stones, hanged  Campbells,  and  were  therefore  not  likely  to  be 
pleased  by  the  prospect  of  Mac  Callum  More's  restoration.  One 
word  from  the  Marquess  would  have  sent  two  thousand  clay- 
mores to  the  Jacobite  side.  But  that  word  he  would  not  speak  ; 
and  the  consequence  was,  that  the  conduct  of  his  followers  was 
as  irresolute  and  inconsistent  as  his  own. 

While  they-  were  waiting  for  some  indication  of  his  wishes, 
they  were  called  to  arms  at  once  by  two  leaders,  either  of  whom 
might,  with  some  show  of  reason,  claim  to  be  considered  as  the 
representative  of  the  absent  chief.  Lord  Murray,  the  Mar- 
quess's eldest  son,  who  was  married  to  a  daughter  of  the  Duke  of 
Hamilton,  declared  for  King  William.  Stewart  of  Ballenach, 
the  Marquess's  confidential  agent,  declared  for  King  James. 
The  people  knew  not  which  summons  to  obey.  He  whose  au- 
thority would  have  been  held  in  profound  reverence  had  plighted 
faith  to  both  sides,  and  had  then  run  away  for  fear  of  being 
under  the  necessity  of  joining  either  ;  nor  was  it  very  easy  to 
say  whether  the  place  which  he  had  left  vacant  belonged  to  his 
steward  or  to  his  heir  apparent. 

The  most  important  military  post  in  Athol  was  Blair  Castle. 
The  house  which  now  bears  that  name  is  not  distinguished  by 
any  striking  peculiarity  from  other  country  seats  of  the  aristoc- 
racy. The  old  building  was  a  lofty  tower  of  rude  architecture 
which  commanded  a  vale  watered  by  the  Garry.  The  walls 
would  have  offered  very  little  resistance  to  a  battering  train,  but 
were  quite  strong  enough  to  keep  the  herdsmen  of  the  Gram- 
pians in  awe.  About  five  miles  south  of  this  stronghold,  the 
valley  of  the  Garry  contracts  itself  into  the  celebrated  glen  of 
Killiecrankie.  At  present  a  highway  as  smooth  as  any  road  in 
Middlesex  ascends  gently  from  the  low  country  to  the  summit 
of  the  defile.  White  villas  peep  from  the  birch  forest ;  and,  on 
a  fine  summer  day,  there  is  scarcely  a  turn  of  the  pass  at  which 
may  not  be  seen  some  angler  casting  his  fly  on  the  foam  of  the 
river,  some  artist  sketching  a  pinnacle  of  rock,  or  some  party  of 
pleasure  banqueting  on  the  turf  in  the  fretwork  of  shade  and 


WILLIAM    AND   MARY.  321 

sunshine.  But,  in  the  days  of  William  the  Third,  Killiecrankie 
was  mentioned  with  horror  by  the  peaceful  and  industrious  in- 
habitants of  the  Perthshire  lowlands.  It  was  deemed  the  most 
perilous  of  all  those  dark  ravines  through  which  the  marauders 
of  the  hills  were  wont  to  sally  forth.  The  sound,  so  musical 
to  modern  ears,  of  the  river  brawling  round  the  mossy  rocks 
and  among  the  smooth  pebbles,  the  masses  of  grey  crag  and 
dark  verdure  worthy  of  the  pencil  of  Wilson,  the  fantastic 
peaks  bathed,  at  sunrise  and  sun-set,  with  light  rich  as  that  which 
glows  on  the  canvass  of  Claude,  suggested  to  our  ancestors 
thoughts  of  murderous  ambuscades,  and  of  bodies  stripped, 
gashed,  and  abandoned  to  the  birds  of  prey.  The  only  path 
was  narrow  and  rugged  :  a  horse  could  with  difficulty  be  led  up  : 
two  men  could  hardly  walk  abreast ;  and,  in  some  places,  the 
way  ran  so  close  by  the  precipice  that  the  traveller  had  great 
need  of  a  steady  eye  and  foot.  Many  years  later,  the  first  Duke 
of  Athol  constructed  a  road  up  which  it  was  just  possible  to  drag 
his  coach.  But  even  that  road  was  so  steep  and  so  strait  that 
a  handful  of  resolute  men  might  have  defended  it  against  an 
army ;  *  nor  did  any  Saxon  consider  a  visit  to  Killiecrankie  as 
a  pleasure,  till  experience  had  taught  the  English  Government 
that  the  weapons  by  which  the  Celtic  clans  could  be  most  ef- 
fectually subdued  were  the  pickaxe  and  the  spade. 

The  country  which  lay  just  above  this  pass  was  now  the 
theatre  of  a  war  such  as  the  Highlands  had  not  often  witnessed. 
Men  wearing  the  same  tartan,  and  attached  to  the  same  lord 

O  » 

were  arrayed  against  each  other.  The  name  of  the  absent 
chief  was  used,  with  some  show  of  reason,  on  both  sides.  Bal- 
lenach,  at  the  head  of  a  body  of  vassals  who  considered  him  as  the 
representative  of  the  Marquess,  occupied  Blair  Castle.  Murray, 
with  twelve  hundred  followers,  appeared  before  the  walls,  and 
demanded  to  be  admitted  into  the  mansion  of  his  family,  the 
mansion  which  would  one  day  be  his  own.  The  garrison  re- 
fused to  open  the  gates.  Messengers  were  sent  off  by  the  be- 
siegers to  Edinburgh,  and  by  the  besieged  to  Lochaber.f  In 
both  places  the  tidings  produced  great  agitation.  Mackay  and 
*  Memoirs  of  Sir  Ewau  Cameron.  t  Mackay's  Memoirs. 

VOL.  III.— 21 


322  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Dundee  agreed  in  thinking  that  the  crisis  required  prompt  and 
strenuous  exertion.  On  the  fate  of  Blair  Castle  probably  de- 
pended the  fate  of  all  Athol.  On  the  fate  of  Athol  might  de- 
pend the  fate  of  Scotland.  Mackay  hastened  northward,  and 
ordered  his  troops  to  assemble  in  the  low  country  of  Perthshire. 
Some  of  them  were  quartered  at  such  a  distance  that  they  did 
not  arrive  in  time.  He  soon,  however,  had  with  him  the  three 
Scotch  regiments  which  had  served  in  Holland,  and  which  bore 
the  names  of  their  colonels,  Mackay  himself,  Balfour,  and  Ram- 
say. There  was  also  a  gallant  regiment  of  infantry  from  Eng- 
land, then  called  Hastings's,  but  now  known  as  the  thirteenth  of 
the  line.  With  these  old  troops  were  joined  two  regiments 
newly  levied  in  the  Lowlands.  One  of  them  was  commanded 
by  Lord  Kenmore ;  the  other,  which  had  been  raised  on  the 
Border,  and  which  is  still  styled  the  King's  Own  Borderers, 
by  Lord  Leven.  Two  troops  of  horse,  Lord  Annandale's  and 
Lord  Belhaven's,  probably  made  up  the  army  to  the  number  of 
above  three  thousand  men.  Belhaven  rode  at  the  head  of  his 
troop :  but  Annandale,  the  most  factious  of  all  Montgomery's 
followers,  preferred  the  Club  and  the  Parliament  House  to  the 
field.* 

Dundee,  meanwhile,  had  summoned  all  the  clans  which  ac- 
knowledged his  commission  to  assemble  for  an  expedition  into 
Athol.  His  exertions  were  strenuously  seconded  by  Lochiel. 
The  fiery  crosses  were  sent  again  in  all  haste  through  Appin  and 
Ardnamurchan,  up  Glenmore,  and  along  Loch  Leven.  But  the 
call  was  so  unexpected,  and  the  time  allowed  was  so  short,  that 
the  muster  was  not  a  very  full  one.  The  whole  number  of 
broadswords  seems  to  have  been  under  three  thousand.  With 
this  force,  such  as  it  was,  Dundee  set  forth.  On  his  march  he 
was  joined  by  succours  which  had  just  arrived  from  Ulster. 
They  consisto^l  of  little  more  than  three  hundred  Irish  foot,  ill 
armed,  ill  clothed,  and  ill  disciplined.  Their  commander  was  au 
officer  named  Cannon,  who  had  seen  service  in  the  Netherlands, 
and  who  might  perhaps  have  acquitted  himself  well  in  a  subordi- 
nate post  and  in  a  regular  army,  but  who  was  altogether  un- 
*  Ma«kay's  Memoirs. 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  323 

equal  to  the  part  now  assigned  to  him.*  He  had  already  loi- 
tered among  the  Hebrides  so  long  that  some  ships  which  had 
been  sent  with  him,  and  which  were  laden  with  stores,  had  been 
taken  by  English  cruisers.  He  and  his  soldiers  had  with  dif- 
ficulty escaped  the  same  fate.  Incompetent  as  he  was,  he  bore 
a  commission  which  gave  him  military  rank  in  Scotland  next  to 
Dundee. 

The  disappointment  was  severe.  In  truth  James  would 
have  done  better  to  withhold  all  assistance  from  the  Highlanders 
than  to  mock  them  by  sending  them,  instead  of  the  well  appointed 
army  which  they  had  asked  and  expected,  a  rabble  contemptible 
in  numbers  and  appearance.  It  was  now  evident  that  whatever 
was  done  for  his  cause  in  Scotland  must  be  done  by  Scottish 
hands,  f 

While  Mackay  from  one  side,  -and  Dundee  from  the  other, 
were  advancing  towards  Blair  Castle,  important  events  had 
taken  place  there'.  Murray's  adherents  soon  began  to  waver 
in  their  fidelity  to  him.  They  had  an  old  antipathy  to  Whigs ; 
for  they  considered  the  name  of  Whig  as  synonymous  with  the 
name  of  Campbell.  They  saw  arrayed  against  them  a  large 
number  of  their  kinsmen,  commanded  by  a  gentleman  who  was 
supposed  to  possess  the  confidence  of  the  Marquess.  The  be- 
sieging army  therefore  melted  rapidly  away.  Many  returned 
home  on  the  plea  that,  as  their  neighbourhood  was  about  to  be 
the  seat  of  war,  they  must  place  their  families  and  cattle  in 
security.  Others  more  ingenuously  declared  that  they  would 
not  fight  in  such  a  quarrel.  One  large  body  went  to  a  brook, 
filled  their  bonnets  with  water,  drank  a  health  to  King  James, 
and  then  dispersed,  t  Their  zeal  for  King  James,  however,  did 
not  induce  them  to  join  the  standard  of  his  general.  They 
lurked  among  the  rocks  and  thickets  which  overhang  the 
Garry,  in  the  hope  that  there  would  soon  be  a  battle,  and  that, 
whatever  might  be  the  event,  there  would  be  fugitives  and 
corpses  to  plunder. 

Murray  was  in  a  strait.    'His  force  had  dwindled  to  three 

*  Van  O.lyck  to  the  GrefBer  of  the  States  General,  Aug.  2-13,  1689. 

t  Memoirs  of  Sir  Ewau  Cameron.  t  Bale-array's  Memoir*. 


324  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

or  four  hundred  men :  even  in  those  men  he  could  put  little 
trust ;  and  the  Macdonalds  and  Camerons  were  advancing  fast. 
He  therefore  raised  the  siege  of  Blair  Castle,  and  retired  with 
a  few  followers  into  the  defile  of  Killiecrankie.  There  he  was 
soon  joined  by  a  detachment  of  two  hundred  fusileers  whom 
Mackay  had  sent  forward  to  secure  the  pass.  The  main  body 
of  the  Lowland  army  speedily  followed.* 

Early  in  the  morning  of  Saturday  the  twenty-seventh  of 
July,  Dundee  arrived  at  Blair  Castle.  There  he  learned  that 
Mackay's  troops  were  already  in  the  ravine  of  Killiecrankie. 
It  was  necessary  to  come  to  a  prompt  decision.  A  council  of 
war  was  held.  The  Saxon  officers  were  generally  against  haz- 
arding a  battle.  The  Celtic  chiefs  were  of  a  different  opinion. 
Glengarry  and  Lochiel  were  now  both  of  a  mind.  "  Fight,  my 
Lord,"  said  Lochiel  with  his  •usual  energy  :  "  fight  immediately, 
fight,  if  you  have  only  one  to  three.  Our  men  are  in  heart. 
Their  only  fear  is  that  the  enemy  should  escape.  Give  them 
their  way ;  and  be  assured  that  they  will  either  perish  or  gain 
a  complete  victory.  But  if  you  restrain  them,  if  you  force  them 
to  remain  on  the  defensive,  I  answer  for  nothing.  If  we  do 
not  fight,  we  had  better  break  up  and  retire  to  our  mountains. "f 

Dundee's  countenance  brightened.  "  You  hear,  gentlemen," 
he  said  to  his  Lowland  officers,  "  you  hear  the  opinion  of  one 
who  understands  Highland  war  better  than  any  of  us."  No 
voice  was  raised  on  the  other  side.  It  was  determined  to  fight ; 
and  the  confederated  clans  in  high  spirits  set  forward  to  en- 
counter the  enemy. 

The  enemy  meanwhile  had  made  his  way  up  the  pass.  The 
ascent  had  been  long  and  toilsome :  for  even  the  foot  had  to 
climb  by  twos  and  threes ;  and  the  baggage  horses,  twelve 
hundred  in  number,  could  mount  only  one  at  a  time.  No 
wheeled  carriage  had  ever  been  tugged  up  that  arduous  path. 
The  head  of  the  column  had  emerged  and  was  on  the  table 
land,  while  the  rearguard  was  still  in  the  plain  below.  At 
length  the  passage  was  effected ;  and  the  troops  found  them- 

*  Mackay's  Short  Relation,  dated  Aug.  17,  UkS. 
t  Memoirs  of  Sir  Kwau  (Jaiuertm. 


WILLIAM   AND   MART.  325 

selves  in  a  valley  of  no  great  extent.  Their  right  was  flanked 
by  a  rising  ground,  their  left  by  the  Garry.  Wearied  with 
their  morning's  work,  they  threw  themselves  on  the  grass  to 
take  some  rest  and  refreshment. 

Early  in  the  afternoon  they  were  roused  by  an  alarm  that 
the  Highlanders  were  approaching.  Regiment  after  regiment 
started  up  and  got  into  order.  In  a  little  while  the  summit  of 
an  ascent  which  was  about  a  musket  shot  before  them  was  cov- 
ered with  bonnets  and  plaids.  Dundee  rode  forward  for  the 
purpose  of  surveying  the  force  with  which  he  was  to  contend, 
and  then  drew  up  his  own  men  with  as  much  skill  as  their 
peculiar  character  permitted  him  to  exert.  It  was  desirable  to 
keep  the  clans  distinct.  Each  tribe,  large  or  small,  formed  a 
column  separated  from  the  next  column  by  a  wide  interval. 
One  of  these  battalions  might  contain  seven  hundred  men, 
while  another  consisted  of  only  a  hundred  and  twenty.  Lochiel 
had  represented  that  it  was  impossible  to  mix  different  tribes 
without  destroying  all  that  constituted  the  peculiar  strength  of 
a  Highland  army.* 

On  the  right,  close  to  the  Garry,  were  the  Macleans.  Near- 
est to  them  were  Cannon  and  his  Irish  foot.  Next  stood  the 
Macdonalds  of  Clanronald,  commanded  by  the  guardian  of  their 
young  prince.  On  their  left  were  other  bands  of  Macdonalds. 
At  the  head  of  one  large  battalion  towered  the  stately  form  of 
Glengarry,  who  bore  in  his  hands  the  royal  standard  of  King 
James  the  Seventh.f  Still  further  to  the  left  were  the  cavalry, 
a  small  squadron,  consisting  of  some  Jacobite  gentlemen  who 
had  fled  from  the  Lowlands  to  the  mountains,  and  of  about  forty 
of  Dundee's  old  troopers.  The  horses  had  been  ill  fed  and  ill 
tended  among  the  Grampians,  and  looked  miserably  lean  and 
feeble.  Beyond  them  was  Lochiel  with  his  Camerons.  On  the 
extreme  left,  the  men  of  Sky  were  marshalled  by  Macdonald  of 
Sleat.t 

In  the  Highlands,  as  in  all  countries  where  war  had  not  be- 

t?  ' 

come  a  science,  men  thought  it  the  most  important  duty  of  a 

*  Memoirs  of  Sir  Ewan  Cameron ;  Mackay's  Memoirs, 
t  Douglas's  Baronage  of  Scotland. 
i  Memoirs  of  Sir  Ewan  Cameron. 


32G  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

commander  to  set  an  example  of  personal  courage  and  of  bodily 
exertion.  Lochiel  was  especially  renowned  for  his  physical 
prowess.  His  clansmen  looked  big  with  pride  when  they  rela- 
ted hoiV  he  had  himself  broken  hostile  ranks  and  hewn  down  tall 
warriors.  He  probably  owed  quite  as  much  of  his  influence  to 
those  achievements  as  to  the  high  qualities  which,  if  fortune  had 
placed  him  iu  the  English  Parliament  or  at  the  French  Court, 
would  have  made  him  one  of  the  foremost  men  of  the  age.  He 
had  the  sense  however  to  perceive  how  erroneous  was  the  no- 
tion which  his  countrymen  had  formed.  He  knew  that  to  give 
and  to  take  blows  was  not  the  business  of  a  general.  He  knew 
with  how  much  difficulty  Dundee  had  been  able  to  keep  together, 
during  a  few  days,  an  army  composed  of  several  clans  ;  and  he 
knew  that  what  Dundee  had  effected  with  difficulty  Cannon  would 
not  be  able  to  effect  at  all.  The  life  on  which  so  much  depend- 
ed must  not  be  sacrificed  to  a  barbarous  prejudice.  Lochiel 
therefore  adjured  Dundee  not  to  run  into  any  unnecessary  dan- 
ger. "  Your  Lordship's  business,"  he  said,  "  is  to  overlook 
everything,  and  to  issue  your  commands.  Our  business  is  to  ex- 
ecute those  commands  bravely  and  promptly."  Dundee  answer- 
ed with  cairn  magnanimity  that  there  was  much  weight  in  what 
his  friend  Sir  Ewan  had  urged,  but  that  no  general  could  effect 
anything  great  without  possessing  the  confidence  of  his  men. 
"  I  must  establish  my  character  for  courage.  Your  people  ex- 
pect to  see  their  leaders  in  the  thickest  of  the  battle  ;  and  to- 
day they  shall  see  me  there.  I  promise  you,  on  my  honour,  that 
in  future  fights,  I  will  take  more  care  of  myself." 

Meanwhile  a  fire  of  musketry  was  kept  up  on  both  sides,  but 
more  skilfully  and  more  steadily  by  the  regular  soldiers  than  by 
the  mountaineers.  The  space  between  the  armies  was  one  cloud 
of  smoke.  Not  a  few  Highlanders  dropped  ;  and  the  clans 
grew  impatient.  The  sun  however  was  low  in  the  west  before 
Dundee  gave  the  order  to  prepare  for  action.  His  men  raised 
a  great  shout.  The  enemy,  probably  exhausted  by  the  toil  of 
the  day,  returned  a  feeble  and  wavering  cheer.  "  We  shall  do 
it  now,"  said  Lochiel  :  "  that  is  not  the  cry  of  men  who  are 
going  to  win."  He  had  walked  through  all  his  ranks,  had  ad- 


WILLIAM    AND    MART. 

dressed  a  few  words  to  every  Cameron,  and  had  taken  from  every 
Cameron  a  promise  to  conquer  or  die.* 

It  was  past  seven  o'clock.  Dundee  gave  the  word.  The 
Highlanders  dropped  their  plaids.  The  few  who  were  so  luxu- 
rious as  to  wear  rude  socks  of  untanned  hide  spurned  them  away. 
It  was  long  remembered  in  Lochaber  that  Lochiel  took  off  what 
probably  was  the  only  pair  of  shoes  in  his  clan,  and  charged 
barefoot  at  the  head  of  his  men.  The  whole  line  advanced 
firing.  The  enemy  returned  the  fire  arid  did  much  execution. 
When  only  a  small  space  was  left  between  the  armies,  the  High- 
landers suddenly  flung  away  their  firelocks,  drew  their  broad- 
swords and  rushed  forward  with  a  fearful  yell.  The  Lowland- 
ers  prepared  to  receive  the  shock  :  but  this  was  then  a  long  and 
awkward  process  ;  and  the  soldiers  were  still  fumbling  with  the 
muzzles  of  their  guns  and  the  handles  of  their  bayonets  when 
the  whole  flood  of  Macleans,  Macdonalds,  and  Camerons  came 
down.  In  two  minutes  the  battle  was  lost  and  won.  The 
ranks  of  Balfour's  regiment  broke.  He  was  cloven  down 
while  struggling  in  the  press.  Ramsay's  men  turned  their 
backs  and  dropped  their  arms.  Mackay's  own  foot  were  swept 
away  by  the  furious  onset  of  the  Camerons.  His  brother  and 
nephew  exerted  themselves  in  vain  to  rally  the  men.  The  for- 
mer was  laid  dead  on  the  ground  by  a  stroke  from  a  claymore. 
The  latter,  with  eight  wounds  in  his  body,  made  his  way  through 
the  tumult  and  carnage  to  his  uncle's  side.  Even  in  that  extrem- 
ity Mackay  retained  all  his  self-possession.  He  had  still  one  hope. 
A  charge  of  horse  might  recover  the  day  ;  for  of  horse  the 
bravest  Highlanders  were  supposed  to  stand  in  awe.  But  he 
called  on  the  horse  in  vain.  Belhaven  indeed  behaved  like  a 
gallant  gentleman  ;  but  his  troopers,  appalled  by  the  rout  of  the 
infantry,  galloped  off  in  disorder  :  Annandale's  men  followed  : 
all  was  over  ;  and  the  mingled  torrent  of  redcoats  und  tartans 
went  raving  down  the  valley  to  the  gorge  of  Killiecrankie. 

Mackay,  accompanied  by  one  trusty  servant,  spurred  bravely 
through  the  thickest  of  the  claymores  and  targets,  and  reached 
a  point  from  which  he  had  a  view  of  the  field.  His  whole  army 

»  Memoirs  of  Sir  Ewan  Cameron. 


328  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

had  disappeared,  with  the  exception  of  some  Borderers  whom 
Leven  had  kept  together,  and  of  the  English  regiment,  which 
had  poured  a  murderous  fire  into  the  Celtic  ranks,  and  which 
still  kept  unbroken  order.  All  the  men  that  could  be  collected 
were  only  a  few  hundreds.  The  general  made  haste  to  lead 
them  across  the  Garry,  and,  having  put  that  river  between 
them  and  the  enemy,  paused  for  a  moment  to  meditate  on  his 
situation. 

He  could  hardly  understand  how  the  conquerors  could  be  so 
unwise  as  to  allow  him  even  that  moment  for  deliberation. 
They  might  with  ease  have  killed  or  taken  all  who  were  with 
him  before  the  night  closed  in.  But  the  energy  of  the  Celtic 
warriors  had  spent  itself  in  one  furious  rush  and  one  short  strug- 
gle. The  pass  was  choked  by  the  twelve  hundred  beasts  of 
burden  which  carried  the  provisions  and  baggage  of  the  van- 
quished army.  Such  a  booty  was  irresistibly  tempting  to  men 
who  were  impelled  to  war  quite  as  much  by  the  desire  of  rapine 
as  by  the  desire  of  glory.  It  is  probable  that  few  even  of  the 
chiefs  were  disposed  to  leave  so  rich  a  prize  for  the  sake  of 
King  James.  Dundee  himself  might  at  that  moment  have  been 
unable  to  persuade  his  followers  to  quit  the  heaps  of  spoil,  and 
to  complete  the  great  work  of  the  day  ;  and  Dundee  was  no 
more. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  action  he  had  taken  his  place  in 
front  of  his  little  band  of  cavalry.  He  bade  them  follow  him, 
and  rode  forward.  But  it  seemed  to  be  decreed  that,  on  that 
day,  the  Lowland  Scotch  should  in  both  armies  appear  to  dis- 
advantage. The  horse  hesitated.  Dundee  turned  round,  stood 
up  in  his  stirrups,  and,  waving  his  hat,  invited  them  to  come  on. 
As  he  lifted  his  arm,  his  cuirass  rose,  and  exposed  the  lower 
part  of  his  left  side.  A  musket  ball  struck  him  :  his  horse 
sprang  forward  and  plunged  into  a  cloud  of  smoke  and  dust, 
which  hid  from  both  armies  the  fall  of  the  victorious  general. 
A  person  named  Johnstone  was  near  him,  and  caught  him  as  he 
sank  down  from  the  saddle.  ''  How  goes  the  day  ?  "  said  Dundee. 
"  Well  for  King  James  ;  "  answered  Johnstone  :  "  but  I  am 
sorry  for  your  Lordship."  "  If  it  is  well  for  him,"  answered 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  329 

the  dying  man,  "  it  matters  the  less  for  me."  He  never  spoke 
again  :  but  when,  half  an  hour  later,  Lord  Dunfermline  and 
some  other  friends  came  to  the  spot,  they  thought  that  they  could 
still  discern  some  faint  remains  of  life.  The  body,  wrapped  in 
two  plaids,  was  carried  to  the  Castle  of  Blair.* 

Mackay,  who  was  ignorant  of  Dundee's  fate,  and  well  ac- 
quainted with  Dundee's  skill  and  activity,  expected  to  be  instant- 
ly and  hotly  pursued,  and  had  very  little  expectation  of  being 
able  to  save  the  scanty  remains  of  the  vanquished  army.  He 
could  not  retreat  by  the  pass :  for  the  Highlanders  were  already 
there.  He  therefore  resolved  to  push  across  the  mountains 
towards  the  valley  of  the  Tay.  He  soon  overtook  two  or  three 
hundred  of  his  runaways  who  had  taken  the  same  road.  Most 
of  them  belonged  to  Ramsay's  regiment,  and  must  have  seen 
service.  But  they  were  unarmed :  they  were  utterly  bewildered 
by  the  recent  disaster  ;  and  the  general  could  find  among  them 
no  remains  either  of  martial  discipline  or  of  martial  spirit.  His 
situation  was  one  which  must  have  severely  tried  the  firmest 
nerves.  Night  had  set  in  :  he  was  in  a  desert :  he  had  no  guide : 
a  victorious  enemy  was,  in  all  human  probability,  on  his  track ; 
and  he  had  to  provide  for  the  safety  of  a  crowd  of  men  who  had 
lost  both  head  and  heart.  He  had  just  suffered  a  defeat  of  all 
defeats  the  most  painful  and  humiliating.  His  domestic  feelings 
had  been  not  less  severely  wounded  than  his  professional  feel- 
ings. One  dear  kinsman  had  just  been  struck  dead  before  his 
eyes.  Another,  bleeding  from  many  wounds,  moved  feebly  at 
his  side.  But  the  unfortunate  general's  courage  was  sustained 
by  a  firm  faith  in  God,  and  a  high  sense  of  duty  to  the  state. 
In  the  midst  of  misery  and  disgrace,  he  still  held  his  head 
nobly  erect,  and  found  fortitude,  not  only  for  himself,  but  for 

*  As  to  the  battle,  see  Mackay's  Memoirs,  Letters,  and  Short  Relation  ;  the 
Memoirs  of  Dundee  ;  Memoirs  of  Sir  Ewun  Cameron  ;  Nisbet's  and  Osburne's 
depositions  in  the  Appendix  to  the  Act.  Parl.  of  July  14,  1690.  See  also  the 
account  of  the  battle  in  one  of  Burl's  Letters.  Macpherson  printed  a  letter  from 
Dundee  to  James  dated  the  day  after  the  battle.  I  need  not  say  that  it  is  as 
imp  tdent  a  forgery  as  Fingal.  The  author  of  the  Memoirs  of  Dundee  says  that 
Lord  Leven  was  soared  by  the  sight  of  the  Highland  weapons,  and  set  the  exam- 
pie  of  flight.  This  is  a  spiteful  falsehood.  That  Leven  behaved  remarkably  well 
is  proved  by  Mackay's  Letters,  Memoirs,  and  Short  Kelation. 


330  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

all  around  him.  His  first  care  was  to  be  sure  of  his  road.  A 
solitary  light  which  twinkled  through  the  darkness  guided  him 
to  a  small  hovel.  The  inmates  spoke  no  tongue  but  the  Gaelic, 
and  were  at  first  scared  by  the  appearance  of  uniforms  and  arms. 
But  Mackay's  gentle  manner  removed  their  apprehension : 
their  language  had  been  familiar  to  him  in  childhood  ;  and  he 
retained  enough  of  it  to  communicate  with  them.  By  their 
directions,  and  by  the  help  of  a  pocket  map,  in  which  the  routes 
through  that  wild  country  was  roughly  laid  down,  he  was  able 
to  find  his  way.  He  marched  all  night.  When  day  broke  his 
task  was  more  difficult  than  ever.  Light  increased  the  terror 
of  his  companions.  Hastings's  men  and  Leveu's  men  indeed 
still  behaved  themselves  like  soldiers.  But  the  fugitives  from 
Ramsay's  were  a  mere  rabble.  They  had  flung  away  their  mus- 
kets. The  broadswords  from  which  they  had  fled  were  ever  in 
their  eyes.  Every  fresh  object  caused  a  fresh  panic.  A  com- 
pany of  herdsmen  in  plaids  driving  cattle  was  magnified  by 
imagination  into  a  host  of  Celtic  warriors.  Some  of  the  runa- 
ways left  the  main  body  and  fled  to  the  hills,  where  their 
cowardice  met  with  a  proper  punishment.  They  were  killed 
for  their  coats  and  shoes  ;  and  their  naked  carcasses  were  left 
for  a  prey  to  the  eagles  of  Ben  Lawers.  The  desertion  would 
have  been  much  greater,  had  not  Mackay  and  his  officers,  pistol 
in  hand,  threatened  to  blow  out  the  brains  of  any  man  whom 
they  caught  attempting  to  steal  off. 

At  length  the  weary  fugitives  came  in  sight  of  Weem  Castle. 
The  proprietor  of  the  mansion  was  a  friend  to  the  new  govern- 
ment, and  extended  to  them  such  hospitality  as  was  in  his 
power.  His  stores  of  oatmeal  were  brought  out :  kine  were 
slaughtered ;  and  a  rude  and  hasty  meal  was  set  before  the 
numerous  guests.  Thus  refreshed,  they  again  set  forth,  and 
marched  all  day  over  bog,  moor,  and  mountain.  Thinly  in- 
habited as  the  country  was,  they  could  plainly  see  that  the  report 
of  their  disaster  had  already  spread  far,  and  that  the  population 
was  everywhere  in  a  state  of  great  excitement.  Late  at  night 
they  reached  Castle  Drummoud,  which  was  held  for  King 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  331 

William  by  a  small  garrison  ;  and,  on  the  following  day,  they 
proceeded  with  less  difficulty  to  Stirling.* 

The  tidings  of  their  Defeat  had  outrun  them.  All  Scotland 
was  in  a  ferment.  The  disaster  had  indeed  been  great  :  but  it 
was  exaggerated  by  the  wild  hopes  of  one  party  and  by  the 
wild  fears  of  the  other.  It  was  at  first  believed  that  the  whole 
army  of  King  William  had  perished  ;  that  Mackay  himself  had 
fallen  ;  that  Dundee,  at  the  head  of  a  great  host  of  barbarians, 
flushed  with  victory  and  impatient  for  spoil,  had  already  de- 
scended from  the  hills  ;  that  he  was  master  of  the  whole  country 
beyond  the  Forth  ;  that  Fife  was  up  to  join  him  ;  that  in  three 
days  he  would  be  at  Stirling  ;  that  in  a  week  he  would  be  at 
Holyrood.  Messengers  were  sent  to  urge  a  regiment  which  lay 
in  Northumberland  to  hasten  across  the  border.  Others  carried 
to  London  earnest  entreaties  that  His  Majesty  would  instantly 
send  every  soldier  that  could  be  spared,  nay,  that  he  would  come 
himself  to  save  his  northern  kingdom.  The  factions  of  the 
Parliament  House,  awestruck  by  the  common  danger,  forgot  to 
wrangle.  Courtiers  and  malecontents  with  one  vgice  implored 
the  Lord  High  Commissioner  to  close  the  session,  and  to  dismiss 
them  from  a  place  where  their  deliberations  might  soon  be  inter- 
rupted by  the  mountaineers.  It  was  seriously  considered  whether 
it  might  not  be  expedient  to  abandon  Edinburgh,  to  send  the 
numerous  state  prisoners  who  were  in  the  Castle  and  the  Tol- 
booth  on  board  of  a  man  of  war  which  lay  off  Leith,  and  to 
transfer  the  seat  of  government  to  Glasgow. 

The  news  of  Dundee's  victory  was  everywhere  speedily  fol- 
lowed by  the  news  of  his  death  ;  and  it  is  a  strong  proof  of  the 
extent  and  vigour  of  his  faculties  that  his  death  seems  every- 
where to  have  been  regarded  as  a  complete  set  off  against  his 
victory.  Hamilton,  before  he  adjourned  the  Estates,  informed 
them  that  he  had  good  tidings  for  them,  that  Dundee  was  cer- 
tainly dead,  and  that  therefore  the  rebels  had  on  the  whole 
sustained  a  defeat.  In  several  letters  written  at  that  con  juncture 
by  able  and  experienced  politicians  a  similar  opinion  is  expressed. 

*  Mackay's  Memoirs ;  Life  of  General  Ilugh  Mackay  by  J.  Mackay  of  Rock- 
field. 


332  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

The  messenger  who  rode  with  the  news  of  the  battle  to  the 
English  capital  was  fast  followed  by  another  who  carried  a  de- 
spatch for  the  King,  and,  not  finding  His  Majesty  at  St.  James's, 
galloped  to  Hampton  Court.  Nobody  in  the  capital  ventured 
to  break  the  seal  :  but  fortunately,  after  the  letter  had  been 
closed,  some  friendly  hand  had  hastily  written  on  the  outside  a 
few  words  of  comfort :  "  Dundee  is  killed.  Mackay  has  got  to 
Stirling  :  "  and  these  words  seem  to  have  quieted  the  minds  of 
the  Londoners.* 

From  the  pass  of  Killiecrankie  the  Highlanders  had  retired, 
proud  of  their  victory,  and  laden  with  spoil,  to  the  Castle  of 
Blair.  They  boasted  that  the  field  of  battle  was  covered  with 
heaps  of  Saxon  soldiers,  and  that1  the  appearance  of  the  corpses 
bore  ample  testimony  to  the  power  of  a  good  Gaelic  broadsword 
in  a  good  Gaelic  right  hand.  Heads  were  found  cloven  down 
to  the  throat,  and  skulls  struck  clean  off  just  above  the  ears. 
The  conquerors  however  had  bought  their  victory  dear.  While 
they  were  advancing  they  had  been  much  galled  by  the  musket- 
ry of  the  enemy  :  and,  even  after  the  decisive  charge,  Hastings's 
Englishmen  and  some  of  Leven's  Borderers  had  continued  to 
keep  up  a  steady  fire.  A  hundred  and  twenty  Camerons  had 
been  slain  :  the  loss  of  the  Macdonalds  had  been  still  greater  ; 
and  several  gentlemen  of  birth  and  note  had  fallen. f 

Dundee  was  buried  in  the  church  of  Blair  Athol  :  but  no 
monument  was  erected  over  his  grave  ;  and  the  church  itself  has 
long  disappeared.  A  rude  stone  on  the  field  of  battle  marks,  if 
local  tradition  can  be  trusted,  the  place  where  he  fell.t  During 
the  last  three  months  of  his  life  he  had  approved  himself  a  great 
warrior  and  politician  ;  and  his  name  is  therefore  mentioned 
with  respect  by  that  large  class  of  persons  who  think  that  there 
is  no  excess  of  wickedness  for  which  courage  and  ability  do  not 
atone. 

*  Letter  of  the  Extraordinary  Ambassadors  to  the  Greffier  of  the  States 
General.  August  2-12,  1689  ;  and  a  letter  of  the  ^ame  dale  from  Van  Od,yck,  who 
was  at  Hampton  Court. 

t  Memoirs  of  Sir  Ewan  Cameron  ;  Memoirs  of  Dundee. 

J  The  tradition  is  certainly  much  more  than  a  hundred  and  twenty  years  old. 
The  stone  was  pointed  out  to  Burt. 


WILLIAM  AND   MARY.  333 

It  is  curious  that  the  two  most  remarkable  battles  that 
perhaps  were  ever  gained  by  irregular  over  regular  troops  should 
have  been  fought  iu  the  same  week ;  the  battle  of  Killiecrankie 
and  the  battle  of  Newton  Butler.  In  both  battles  the  success  of 
the  irregular  troops  was  singularly  rapid  and  complete.  In  both 
battles  the  panic  of  the  regular  troops,  iu  spite  of  the  conspicuous 
example  of  courage  set  by  their  generals,  was  singularly  disgrace- 
ful. It  ought  also  to  be  noted,  that  of  these  extraordinary 
victories,  one  was  gained  by  Celts  over  Saxons,  and  the  other 
by  Saxons  over  Celts.  The  victory  of  Killiecrankie  indeed, 
though  neither  more  splendid  cor  more  important  than  the 
victory  of  Newton  Butler,  is  far  more  widely  renowned ;  and 
the  reason  is  evident.  The  Anglosaxon  and  the  Celt  have  been 
reconciled  iu  Scotland,  and  have  never  been  reconciled  in  Ireland. 
la  Scotland  all  the  great  actions  of  both  races  are  thrown  into  a 
common  stock,  and  are  considered  as  making  up  the  glory  which 
belongs  to  the  whole  country.  So  completely  has  the  old  antip- 
athy been  extinguished  that  nothing  is  more  usual  than  to  hear 
a  Lowlander  talk  with  complacency  and  even  with  pride  of  the 
most  humiliating  defeat  that  his  ancestors  ever  underwent.  It 
would  be  difficult  to  name  any  eminent  man  in  whom  national 
feeling  and  clannish  feeling  were  stronger  than  in  Sir  Walter 
Scott.  Yet  when  Sir  Walter  Scott  mentioned  Killiecrankie  he 
seemed  utterly  to  forget  that  he  was  a  Saxon,  that  he  was  of  the 
same  blood  and  of  the  same  speech  with  Ramsay's  foot  and 
Annandale's  horse.  His  heart  swelled  with  triumph  when  he 
related  how  his  own  kindred  had  fled  like  hares  before  a  smaller 
number  of  warriors  of  a  different  breed  and  of  a  different 
tongue. 

In  Ireland  the  feud  remains  annealed.  The  name  of  New- 
ton Butler,  insultingly  repeated  by  a  minority,  is  hateful  to  the 
great  majority  of  the  population.  If  a  monument  were  set  up 
on  the  field  of  battle,  it  would  probably  be  defaced  ;  if  a  festival 
were  held  in  Cork  or  Waterford  on  the  anniversary  of  the  battle, 
it  would  probably  be  interrupted  by  violence.  The  most  illus- 
trious Irish  poet  of  our  time  would  have  thought  it  treason  to 
his  country  to  sing  the  praises  of  the  conquerors.  One  of  the 


334  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

most  learned  and  diligent  Irish  archaeologists  of  our  time  has 
laboured,  not  indeed  very  successfully,  to  prove  that  the  event 
of  the  day  was  decided  by  a  mere  accident  from  which  the 
Englishry  could  derive  no  glory.  We  cannot  wonder  that  the 
victory  of  the  Highlanders  should  be  more  celebrated  than  the 
victory  of  the  Enniskilleners  when  we  consider  that  the  victory 
of  the  Highlanders  is  matter  of  boast  to  all  Scotland,  and  that 
the  victory  of  the  Enniskilleners  is  matter  of  shame  to  three 
fourths  of  Ireland. 

As  far  as  the  great  interests  of  the  state  were  concerned,  it 
mattered  not  at  all  whether  the  battle  of  Killiecrankie  were  lost 
or  won.  It  is  very  improbable  that  even  Dundee,  if  he  had 
survived  the  most  glorious  day  of  his  life,  could  have  surmounted 
those  difficulties  which  sprang  from  the  peculiar  nature  of  his 
army,  and  which  would  have  increased  tenfold  as  soon  as  the  war 
was  transferred  to  the  Lowlands.  It  is  certain  that  his  succes- 
sor was  altogether  unequal  to  the  task.  During  a  day  or  two, 
indeed,  the  new  general  might  flatter  himself  that  all  would  go 
well.  His  army  was  rapidly  swollen  to  near  double  the  number 
of  claymores  that  Dundee  had  commanded.  The  Stewarts  of 
Appin,  who,  though  full  of  zeal,  had  not  been  able  to  come  up 
in  time  for  the  battle,  were  among  the  first  who  arrived.  Sev- 
eral clans  who  had  liithei  t  j  waited  to  see  which  side  was  the 
stronger,  were  now  eager  to  descend  on  the  Lowlands  under  the 
standard  of  King  James  the  Seventh.  The  Grants  indeed  con- 
tinued to  bear  true  allegiance  to  William  and  Mary  ;  and  the 
Mackintoshes  were  kept  neutral  by  unconquerable  aversion  to 
Keppoch.  But  Macphersons,  Farquharsons,  and  Erasers  came 
iu  crowds  to  the  camp  at  Blair.  The  hesitation  of  the  Athol 
men  was  at  an  end.  Many  of  them  had  lurked,  during  the  fight, 
among  the  crags  and  birch  trees  of  Killiecrankie,  and,  as  soon  as 
the  event  of  the  day  was  decided,  had  emerged  from  those  hiding 
places  to  strip  and  butcher  the  fugitives  who  tried  to  escape  by 
the  pass.  The  Robertsons,  a  Gaelic  race,  though  bearing  a 
Saxou  name,  gave  in  at  this  conjuncture  their  adhesion  to  the 
cause  of  the  exiled  King.  Their  chief  Alexander,  who  took  his 
appellation  from  his  lordship  of  Struan,  was  a  very  young  mail 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  335 

and  a  student  at  the  University  of  St.  Andrew's.  He  had  there 
acquired  a  smattering  of  letters,  and  had  been  initiated  much 
more  deeply  into  Tory  politics.  He  now  joined  the  Highland 
army,  and  continued,  through  a  long  life,  to  be  constant  to  the 
Jacobite  cause.  His  part,  however,  in  public  affairs  was  so  in- 
significant that  his  name  would  not  now  be  remembered,  if  he 
had  not  left  a  volume  of  poems,  always  very  stupid  and  often 
very  profligate.  Had  this  book  been  manufactured  in  Grub 
Street,  it  would  scarcely  have  been  honoured  with  a  quarter  of  a 
line  in  the  Dunciad.  But  it  attracted  some  notice  on  account  of 
the  situation  of  the  writer.  For,  a  hundred  and  twenty  years 
ago,  an  eclogue  or  a  lampoon  written  by  a  Highland  chief  was 
a  literary  portent.* 

But,  though  the  numerical  strength  of  Cannon's  forces  was 
increasing,  their  efficiency  was  diminishing.  Every  new  tribe 
which  joined  the  camp  brought  with  it  some  new  cause  of  dis- 
sension. In  the  hour  of  peril,  the  most  arrogant  and  mutinous 
spirits  will  often  submit  to  the  guidasce  of  superior  genius. 
Yet,  even  in  the  hour  of  peril,  and  even  to  the  genius  of  Dundee* 
the  Celtic  chiefs  had  yielded  but  a  precarious  and  imperfect 
obedience.  To  restrain  them,  when  intoxicated  with  success 
and  confident  of  their  strength,  would  probably  hare  been  too 
hard  a  task  even  for  him,  as  it  had  been,  in  the  preceding  gen- 
eration, too  hard  a  task  for  Montrose.  The  new  general  did 
nothing  but  hesitate  and  blunder.  One  of  his  first  acts  was  to 
send  a  large  body  of  men,  chiefly  Robertsons,  down  into  the  low 
country  ior  the  purpose  of  collecting  provisions.  He  seems  to 
have  supposed  that  this  detachment  would  without  difficulty 
occupy  Perth.  But  Mackay  had  already  restored  order  among 
the  remains  of  his  army :  he  had  assembled  round  him  some 
troops  which  had  not  shared  in  the  disgrace  of  the  late  defeat ; 
and  he  was  again  ready  for  action.  Cruel  as  his  sufferings  had 
been,  he  had  wisely  and  magnanimously  resolved  not  to  punish 
what  was  past.  To  distinguish  between  degrees  of  guilt  was 

*  See  the  History  prefixed  to  the  poems  of  Alexander  Robertson.  In  this  his- 
tory he  in  represented  ns  having  joined  before  the  battle  of  Killiecrankie.  But 
it  appears  from  the  evidence  which  is  in  the  Appendix  to  the  Act,  Farl.  Scot,  of 
July  14,  1690,  that  he  came  in  on  the  following  day. 


336  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

not  easy.  To  decimate  the  guilty  would  have  been  to  commit 
a  frightful  massacre.  His  habitual  piety  too  led  him  to  consider 
the  unexampled  panic  which  had  seized  his  soldiers  as  a  proof 
rather  of  the  divine  displeasure  than  of  their  cowardice.  He 
acknowledged  with  heroic  humility  that  the  singular  firmness 
which  he  had  himself  displayed  in  the  midst  of  the  confusion 
and  havoc  was  not  his  own,  and  that  he  might  well,  but  for  the 
support  of  a  higher  power,  have  behaved  as  pusillanimously  as 
any  of  the  wretched  runaways  who  had  thrown  away  their 
weapons  and  implored  quarter  in  vain  from  the  barbarous 
marauders  of  Athol.  His  dependence  on  heaven  did  not,  how- 
ever, prevent  him  from  applying  himself  vigorously  to  the  work 
of  providing,  as  far  as  human  prudence  could  provide,  against 
the  recurrence  of  such  a  calamity  as  that  which  he  had  just 
experienced.  The  immediate  cause  of  the  late  defeat  was  the 
difficulty  of  fixing  bayonets.  The  firelock  of  the  Highlander 
was  quite  distinct  from  the  weapon  which  he  used  in  close  fight. 
He  discharged  his  shofe,  threw  away  his  gun,  and  fell  on  with 
his  sword.  This  was  the  work  of  a  moment.  It  took  the 
regular  musketeer  two  or  three  minutes  to  alter  his  missile 

o 

weapon  into  a  weapon  with  which  he  could  encounter  an  enemy 
hand  to  hand ;  and  during  these  two  or  three  minutes  the  event 
of  the  battle  of  Killiecrankie  had  been  decided.  Mackay  there- 
fore ordered  all  his  bayonets  to  be  so  formed  that  they  might 
be  screwed  upon  the  barrel,  without  stopping  it  up,  and  that 
his  men  might  be  able  to  receive  a  charge  the  very  instant  after 
firing.* 

As  soon  as  he  learned  that  a  detachment  of  the  Gaelic  army 
was  advancing  towards  Perth,  he  hastened  to  meet  them  at  the 
head  of  a  body  of  dragoons  who  had  not  been  in  the  battle,  and 
whose  spirit  was  therefore  unbroken.  On  Wednesday  the  thirty- 
first  of  July,  only  four  days  after  his  defeat,  he  fell  in  with  the 
Robertsons,  attacked  them,  routed  them,  killed  a  hundred  and 
twenty  of  them,  and  took  thirty  prisoners,  with  the  loss  of  only 
<i  single  soldier,  f  This  skirmish  produced  an  effect  quite  out 
of  proportion  to  the  number  of  the  combatants  or  of  the  slain. 

*  Mackay's  Memoirs.  t  Ibid. ;  Memoirs  of  Sir  E  wan  Carceron. 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  337 

The  reputation  of  the  Celtic  arms  went  down  almost  as  fast  as 
it  had  risen.  During  two  or  three  days  it  had  been  everywhere 
imagined  that  those  arms  were  invincible.  There  was  now  a 
reaction.  It  was  perceived  that  what  had  happened  at  Killie- 
crankie  was  an  exception  to  ordinary  rules,  and  that  the  High- 
landers were  not,  except  in  very  peculiar  circumstances,  a  match 
for  goqd  regular  troops. 

Meanwhile  the  disorders  of  Cannon's  camp  went  on  increas- 
ing. Pie  called  a  council  of  war  to  consider  what  course  it 
would  be  advisable  to  take.  But,  as  soon  as  the  council  had 
met,  a  preliminary  question  was  raised.  Who  were  entitled  to 
be  consulted  ?  The  army  was  almost  exclusively  a  Highland 
army.  The  recent  victory  had  been  won  exclusively  by  High- 
land warriors.  Great  chiefs,  who  had  brought  six  or  seven 
hundred  fighting  men  into  the  field,  did  not  think  it  fair  that 
they  should  be  outvoted  by  gentlemen  from  Ireland  and  from 
the  low  country,  who  bore  indeed  King  James's  commission, 
and  were  called  Colonels  and  Captains,  but  who  were  Colonels 
without  regiments  and  Captains  without  companies.  Lochiel 
spoke  strongly  in  behalf  of  the  class  to  which  he  belonged :  but 
Cannon  decided  that  the  votes  of  the  Saxon  officers  should  be 
reckoned.* 

It  was  next  considered  what  was  to  be  the  plan  of  the  cam- 
paign. Lochiel  was  for  advancing,  for  marching  towards  Mackay 
whei-ever  Mackay  might  be,  and  for  giving  battle  again.  It 
can  hardly  be  supposed  that  success  had  so  turned  the  head  of 
the  wise  chief  of  the  Camerons  as  to  make  him  insensible  of  the 
danger  of  the  course  which  he  recommended.  But  he  probably 
conceived  that  nothing  but  a  choice  between  dangers  was  left  to 
him.  His  notion  was  that  vigorous  action  was  necessary  to  the 
very  being  of  a  Highland  army,  and  that  the  coalition  of  clans 
would  last  only  while  they  were  impatiently  pushing  forward 
from  battlefield  to  battlefield.  He  was  again  overruled.  All 
his  hopes  of  success  were  now  at  an  end.  His  pride  was  severely 
wounded.  He  had  submitted  to  the  ascendency  of  a  great  cap- 
tain :  but  he  cared  as  little  as  any  Whig  for  a  royal  commission. 

*  Memoirs  of  Sir  E  \vaii  Cameron. 

VOL.  III.— 22 


66$  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

He  had  been  willing  to  be  the  right  hand  of  Dundee  :  but  he 
would  not  be  ordered  about  by  Cannon.  He  quitted  the  camp, 
and  retired  to  Lochaber.  He  indeed  directed  his  clan  to  remain. 
But  the  clan,  deprived  of  the  leader  whom  it  adored,  and  aware 
that  he  had  withdrawn  himself  in  ill  humour,  was  no  longer 
the  same  terrible  column  which  had  a  few  days  before  kept  so 
well  the  vow  to  perish  or  to  conquer.  Macdonald  of  Sleatr  whose 
forces  exceeded  in  number  those  of  any  other  of  the  confed- 
erate chiefs,  followed  Lochiel's  example  and  returned  to  Sky.* 

Mackay's  arrangements  were  by  this  time  complete ;  and 
he  had  little  doubt  that,  if  the  rebels  came  down  to  attack  him, 
the  regular  army  would  retrieve  tl:e  honour  which  had  been 
lost  at  Killiecrankie.  His  chief  difficulties  arose  from  the  un- 
wise interference  of  the  ministers  of  the  Crown  at  Edinburgh 
with  matters  which  ought  to  have  been  left  to  his  direction. 
The  truth  seems  to  be  that  they,  after  the  ordinary-fashion  of 
men  who,  having  no  military  experience,  sit  in  judgment  on 
military  operations,  considered  success  as  the  only  test  of  the 
ability  of  a  commander.  Whoever  wins  a  battle  is,  in  the  esti- 
mation of  such  persons,  a  great  general :  whoever  is  beaten  is  a 
bad  general ;  and  no  general  had  ever  been  more  completely 
beaten  than  Mackay.  William,  on  the  other  hand,  continued  to 
place  entire  confidence  in  his  unfortunate  lieutenant.  To  the 
disparaging  remarks  of  critics  who  had  never  seen  a  skirmish, 
Portland  replied,  by  his  master's  orders,  that  Mackay  was  per- 
fectly trustworthy,  that  he  was  brave,  that  he  understood  war 
better  than  any  other  officer  in  Scotland,  and  that  it  was  much 
to  be  regretted  that  any  prejudice  should  exist  against  so  good 
a  man  and  so  good  a  soldier. f 

The  unjust  contempt  with  which  the  Scotch  Privy  Coun- 
cillors regarded  Mackay  led  them  into  a  great  error  which 
might  well  have  caused  a  great  disaster.  The  Cameronian  regi- 
ment was  sent  to  garrison  Dunkeld.  Of  this  arrangement 
Mackay  altogether  disapproved.  He  knew  that  at  Dunkeld 
these  troops  would  be  near  the  enemy ;  that  they  would  be  far 

»  Memoirs  of  Sir  Ewan  Cameron. 

t  See  Portland's  Letters  to  Melville  of  April  22,  and  May  15,- 1690,  iu  the 
Leveu  aiid  Melville  Papers. 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  339 

from  all  assistance  ;  that  they  would  be  in  an  open  town  ;  that 
they  would  be  surrounded  by  a  hostile  population ;  that  they 
were  very  imperfectly  disciplined,  though  doubtless  brave  and 
zealous  ;  that  they  were  regarded  by  the  whole  Jacobite  party 
throughout  Scotland  with  peculiar  malevolence ;  and  that  in  all 
probability  some  great  effort  would  be  made  to  disgrace  and  _ 
destroy  them.* 

The  General's  opinion  was  disregarded ;  and  the  Camero- 
nians  occupied  the  post  assigned  to  them.  It  soon  appeared 
that  his  forebodings  were  just.  The  inhabitants  of  the  country 
round  Duukeld  furnished  Cannon  with  intelligence  and  urged 
him  to  make  a  bold  push.  The  peasantry  of  Ath'ol.  impatient 
for  spoil,  came  in  great  numbers  to  swell  his  army.  The  regi- 
ment hourly  expected  to  be  attacked,  and  became  discontented 
and  turbulent.  The  men,  intrepid,  indeed,  both  from  constitu- 
tion and  from  enthusiasm,  but  not  yet  broken  to  habits  of  mili- 
tary submission,  expostulated  with  Cleland,  who  commanded 
them.  They  had,  they  imagined,  been  recklessly,  if  not  per- 
fidiously, sent  to  certain  destruction.  They  were  protected  by 
no  ramparts :  they  had  a  very  scanty  stock  of  ammunition : 
they  were  hemmed  in  by  enemies.  An  officer  might  mount  and 
gallop  beyond  reach  of  danger  in  an  hour :  but  the  private 
soldier  must  stay  and  be  butchered.  "  Neither  I,"  said  Cle- 
land, "  nor  any  of  my  officers  will,  in  any  extremity,  abandon 
you.  Bring  out  my  horse,  all  our  horses  ;  they  shall  be  shot 
dead."  These  words  produced  a  complete  change  of  feeling. 
The  men  answered  that  the  horses  should  not  be  shot,  that  they 
wanted  no  pledge  from  their  brave  Colonel  except  his  word, 
and  that  they  would  run  the  last  hazard  with  him.  They  kept 
their  promise  well.  The  Puritan  blood  was  now  thoroughly  up  ; 
and  what  that  blood  was  when  it  was  up  had  been  proved  on 
many  fields  of  battle. 

That  night  the  regiment  passed  under  arms.  On  the  morn- 
ing of  the  following  day,  the  twenty-first  of  August,  all  the  hills 
round  Dunkeld  were  alive  with  bonnets  and  plaids.  Cannon's 
army  was  much  larger  than  that  which  Dundee  had  commanded, 

Mackay's  Memoirs  ;  Memoirs  of  Sir  Ewau  Cameron. 


340  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

and  was  accompanied  by  more  than  a  thousand  horses  laden 
with  baggage.  Both  the  horses  and  baggage  were  probably  part 
of  the  booty  of  Killiecrankie.  The  whole  number  of  Highland- 
ers was  estimated  by  those  that  saw  them  at  from  four  to  five 
thousand  men.  They  came  furiously  on.  The  outposts  of  the 
Cameronians  were  speedily  driven  in.  The  assailants  came  pour- 
ing on  every  side  into  tjie  street.  The  church,  however,  held  out 
obstinately.  But  the  greater  part  of  the  regiment  made  its  stand 
behind  a  wall  which  surrounded  a  house  belonging  to  the  Mar- 
quess of  Athol.  This  wall,  which  had  two  or  three  days  before 
been  hastily  repaired  with  timber  and  loose  stones,  the  soldiers 
defended  desperately  with  musket,  pike,  and  halbert.  Their  bul- 
lets were  soon  spent ;  but  some  of  the  men  were  employed  in 
cutting  lead  from  the  roof  of  the  Marquess's  house  and  shaping 
it  into  slugs.  Meanwhile  all  the  neighbouring  houses  were 
crowded  from  top  to  bottom  with  Highlanders,  who  kept  up  a 
galling  fire  from  the  windows.  Cleland,  while  encouraging  his 
men,  was  shot  dead.  The  command  devolved  on  Major  Hender- 
son. In  another  minute  Henderson  fell  pierced  with  three  mor- 
tal wounds.  His  place  was  supplied  by  Captain  Munroe,  and 
the  contest  went  on  with  undiminished  fury.  A  party  of  the  Cam- 
eronians sallied  forth,  set  fire  to  the  houses  from  which  the  fa- 
tal shots  had  come,  and  turned  the  keys  in  the  doors.  In  one 
single  dwelling  sixteen  of  the  enemy  were  burnt  alive.  Those 
who  were  in  the  fighu  described  it  as  a  terrible  initiation  for  re- 
cruits. Half  the  town  was  blazing ;  and  with  the  incessant 
roar  of  the  guns  were  mingled  the  piercing  shrieks  of  wretches 
perishing  in  the  flames.  The  struggle  lasted  four  hours.  By 
that  time  the  Cameronians  were  reduced  nearly  to  their  last 
flask  of  powder  :  but  their  spirit  never  flagged.  "  The  enemy 
will  soon  carry  the  wall.  Be  it  so.  We  will  retreat  into  the 
house  :  we  will  defend  it  to  the  last ;  and,  if  they  force  their 
way  into  it,  we  will  burn  it  over  their  heads  and  our  own." 
But,  while  they  were  revolving  these  desperate  projects,  they 
observed  that  the  fury  of  the  assault  slackened.  Soon  the 
Highlanders  began  to  fall  back :  disorder  visibly  spread  among 
them ;  aud  whole  bands  began  to  march  off  to  the  hills.  It 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  341 

was  in  vain  that  their  general  ordered  them  to  return  to  the  at- 
tack. Perseverance  was  not  one  of  their  military  virtues.  The 
Gameronians  meanwhile,  with  shouts  of  defiance,  invited  Ama- 
lek  and  Mo  ib  to  come  back  and  to  try  another  chance  with  the 
chosen  people.  But  these  exhortations  had  as  little  effect  as 
those  of  Cannon.  In  a  short  time  the  whole  Gaelic  army  was  in 
full  retreat  towards  Blair.  Then  the  drums  struck  up :  the  vic- 
torious Puritans  threw  their  caps  into  the  air,  raised,  with  one 
voice,  a  psalm  of  triumph  and  thanksgiving,  and  waved  their  col- 
ours, colours  which  were  on  that  day  unfurled  for  the  first  time 
in  the  face  of  an  enemy,  but  which  have  since  been  proudly 
borne  in  every  quarter  of  the  world,  and  which  are  now  embel- 
lished with  the  Sphinx  and  the  Dragon,  emblems  of  brave  ac- 
tions achieved  in  Egypt  and  China.* 

The  Cameronians  had  good  reason  to  be  joyful  and  thank- 
ful ;  for  they  had  finished  the  war.  In  the  rebel  camp  all  was 
discord  and  dejection.  The  Highlanders  blamed  Cannon  ;  Can- 
non blamed  the  Highlanders  ;  and  the  host  which  had  been  the 
terror  of  Scotland  melted  fast  away.  The  confederate 
chiefs  signed  an  association  by  which  they  declared  themselves 
faithful  subjects  of  King  James,  and  bound  themselves  to  meet 
again  at  a  future  time.  Having  gone  through  this  form, — for 
it  was  no  more, — they  departed,  each  to  his  home.  Cannon 
and  his  Irishmen  retired  to  the  Isle  of  Mull.  The  Lowlanders 
who  had  followed  Dundee  to  the  mountains  shifted  for  them- 
selves as  they  best  could.  On  the  twenty-fourth  of  August, 
exactly  four  weeks  after  the  Gaelic  army  had  won  the  battle  of 
Killiecrankie,  that  army  ceased  to  exist.  It  ceased  to  exist,  as 
the  army  of  Montrose  had,  more  than  forty  years  earlier,  ceased 
to  exist,  not  iu  consequence  of  any  great  blow  from  without, 
but  by  a  natural  dissolution,  the  effect  of  internal  malformation. 
All  the  fruits  of  victory  were  gathered  by  the  vanquished. 
The  Castle  of  Blair,  which  had  been  the  immediate  object  of 

*  Exact  Narrative  of  the  Conflict  at  Dunkeld  between  the  Earl  of  Angtas's 
Rerriment  ami  the  Rebels,  collected  from  several  Officers  of  that  Regiment  who 
were  Actors  in  or  Eye-witnesses  of  all  that's  here  narrated  in  Reference  to  those 
Actions  ;  Letter  of  Lieutenant  Blackader  to  his  brother,  dated  Dunkeld,  Aug.  21, 
16SO  ;  Faithful  Contending*  Displayed  ;  Minute  of  the  Scotch  Privy  Council  of 
August  '28,  quoted  by  Mr.  Burton. 


342  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

the  contest,  opened  its  gates  to  Mackay ;  and  a  chain  of 
military  posts,  extending  northward  as  far  as  Inverness,  pro- 
tected the  cultivators  of  the  plains  against  the  predatory  inroads 
of  the  mountaineers. 

During  the  autumn  the  government  was  much  more  annoy- 
ed by  the  Whigs  of  the  low  country  than  by  the  Jacobites  of 
the  hills.  The  Club,  which  had,  in  the  late  session  of  Parlia- 
ment, attempted  to  turn  the  kingdom  into  an  oligarchical  re- 
public, and  which  had  induced  the  Estates  to  refuse  supplies 
and  to  stop  the  administration  of  justice,  continued  to  sit  during 
the  recess,  arid  harassed  the  ministers  of  the  Crown  by  system- 
atic agitation.  The  organisation  of  this  body,  contemptible  as 
it  may  appear  to  the  generation  which  has  seen  the  Roman 
Catholic  Association  and  the  League  against  the  Corn  Laws, 
was  then  thought  marvellous  and  formidable.  The  leaders  of 
the  confederacy  boasted  that  they  would  force  the  King  to  do 
them  right.  They  got  up  petitions  and  addresses,  tried  to  in- 
flame the  populace  by  means  of  the  press  and  the  pulpit,  em- 
ployed emissaries  among  the  soldiers,  and  talked  of  bringing  up 
a  large  body  of  Covenanters  from  the  west  to  overawe  the  Privy 
Council.  In  spite  of  every  artifice,  however,  the  ferment  of 
the  public  mind  gradually  subsided.  The  government,  after 
some  hesitation,  ventured  to  open  the  Courts  of  Justice  which 
the  Estates  had  closed.  The  Lords  of  Session  appointed  by 
the  King  took  their  seats  ;  and  Sir  James  Dalrymple  presided 
The  Club  attempted  to  induce  the  advocates  to  absent  them- 
selves from  the  bar,  and  entertained  some  hope  that  the  mob 
would  pull  the  judges  from  the  bench.  But  it  speedily  became 
clear  that  there  was  much  more  likely  to  be  a  scarcity  of  fees 
than  of  lawyers  to  take  them  :  the  common  people  of  Edinburgh 
were  well  pleased  to  see  again  a  tribunal  associated  in  their 
imagination  with  the  dignity  and  prosperity  of  their  city  ;  and 
by  many  signs  it  appeared  that  the  false  and  greedy  faction 
which  had  commanded  a  majority  of  the  legislature  did  not 
command  a  majority  of  the  nation.* 

*  The  History  of  Scotland  during  this  a.utnum  will  be  best  studied  in  the 
Leveii  aud  Melville  Papers. 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

TWENTY-FOUR  hours  before  the  war  in  Scotland  was  brought 

o 

to  a  close  by  the  discomfiture  of  the  Celtic  army  at  Dunkeld, 
the  Parliament  broke  up  at  Westminster.  The  Houses  had 
sate  ever  since  January  without  a  recess.  The  Commons,  who 
were  cooped  up  in  a  narrow  space,  had  suffered  severely  from 
heat  and  discomfort ;  and  the  health  of  many  members  had 
given  way.  The  fruit,  however,  had  not  been  proportioned  to 
the  toil.  The  last  three  months  of  the  session  had  been  almost 
entirely  wasted  in  disputes,  which  have  left  no  trace  in  the 
Statute  Book.  The  progress  of  salutary  laws  had  been  impeded, 
sometimes  by  bickerings  between  the  Whigs  and  the  Tories, 
and  sometimes  by  bickerings  between  the  Lords  and  the  Com- 
mons. 

The  Revolution  had  scarcely  been  accomplished  when  it 
appeared  that  the  supporters  of  the  Exclusion  Bill  had  not 
forgotten  what  they  had  suffered  during  the  ascendency  of  their 
enemies,  and  were  bent  on  obtaining  both  reparation  and  revenge. 
Even  before  the  throne  was  filled,  the  Lords  appointed  a  com- 
mittee to*  examine  into  the  truth  of  the  frightful  stories  which 
had  been  circulated  concerning  the  death  of  Essex.  The  Com- 
mittee, which  consisted  of  zealous  Whigs,  continued  its  inquiries 
till  all  reasonable  men  were  convinced  that  he  had  fallen  by  his 
own  hand,  and  till  his  wife,  his  brother,  and  his  most  intimate 
friends  were  desirous  that  the  investigation  should  be  carried  no 
further.*  Atonement  was  made,  without  any  opposition  on  the 
part  of  the  Tories,  to  the  memory  and  the  families  of  some 

*  See  the  Lords'  Journals  of  Feb.  5,  1688-9,  and  of  many  subsequent  days  ; 
Braddoir  s  pamphlet,  entitled  the  Earl  of  Essex's  Memory  and  Honour  Vindi- 
cated, 1690  ;  and  the  London  Gazette  of  July  31,  and  August  4,  and  7*  1690.  in 
which  Lady  Essex  and  Burnet  publicly  contradicted  Braddon 


344  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

victims,  who  were  themselves  beyond  the  reach  of  human 
power.  Soon  after  the  Convention  had  been  turned  into  a 
Parliament,  a  bill  for  .reversing  the  attainder  of  Lord  Russell 
was  presented  to  the  Peers,  was  speedily  passed  by  them,  was 
sent  down  to  the  Lower  House,  and  was  welcomed  there  by 
no  common  signs  of  emotion.  Many  of  the  members  had  sate 
in  that  very  chamber  with  Russell.  He  had  long  exercised 
there  an  influence  resembling  the  influence  which,  within  the 
memory  of  this  generation,  belonged  to  the  upright  and  benev- 
olent Althorpe  ;  an  influence  derived,  not  from  superior  skill 
in  debate  or  in  declamation,  but  from  spotless  integrity,  from 
plain  good  sense,  and  from  that  frankness,  that  simplicity,  that 
good  nature,  which  are  singularly  graceful  and  winning  in  a  man 
raised  by  birth  and  fortune  high  above  his  fellows.  By  the 
Whigs  Russell  had  been  honoured  as  a  chief ;  and  his  political 
adversaries  had  admitted  that,  when  he  was  not  misled  by 
associates  less  respectable  and  more  artful  than  himself,  he  was 
as  honest  and  kindhearted  a  gentleman  as  any  in  England.  The 
manly  firmness  and  Christian  meekness  with  which  he  had  met 
death,  the  desolation  of  his  noble  house,  the  misery  of  the 
bereaved  father,  the  blighted  prospects  of  the  orphan  children,* 
above  all,  the  union  of  womanly  tenderness  and  angelic  patience 
in  her  who  had  been  dearest  to  the  brave  sufferer,  who  had  sate, 
with  the  pen  in  her  hand,  by  his  side  at  the  bar,  who  had 
cheered  the  gloom  of  his  cell,  and  who,  on  his  last  day,  had 
shared  with  him  the  memorials  of  the  great  sacrifice,  had  soften- 
ed the  hearts  of  many  who  were  little  in  the  habit  of  pitying  an 
opponent.  That  Russell  had  many  good  qualities,  that  he  had 
meant  well,  that  he  had  been  hardly  used,  was  now  admitted 
even  by  courtly  lawyers  who  had  assisted  in  shedding  his  blood, 
and  by  courtly  divines  who  had  done  their  worst  to  blacken  his 

*  Whether  the  .attainder  of  Lord  TtnsSell  would,  if  urtreverped.  have  prevented 
his  son  from  succeeding  1o  the  earldom  of  Bedford,  is  a  difficult  question.  The 
old  Earl  collected  the  opinions  of  the  greatest  lawyers  of  the  age,  which  may 
still  be  seen  among  the  archives  at  Wobiirn.  It  is  remarkable  that  OTIC  of  these 
opinions  is  signed  by  Pemberton,  whrt  h:\d  presided  at  the  trial.  This  circum- 
stance seems  to  prove  that  the  family  did  not  impute  to  him  rny  injustice  or 
cruelty  ;  anil  in  truth  he  had  behaved  as  well  as  any  judge,  before  the  Revolu- 
tion, ever  behaved  on  a  similar  occasion. 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  345 

reputation.  When,  therefore,  the  parchment  which  annulled 
his  sentence  was  laid  on  the  table  of  that  assembly  in  which, 
eight  years  before,  his  face  and  his  voice  had  been  so  well 
known,  the  excitement  was  great.  One  old  Whig  member  tried 
to  speak,  but  was  overcome  by  his  feelings.  "  I  cannot,"  he 
faltered  out,  "  name  my  Lord  Russell  without  disorder.  It  is 
enough  to  name  him.  I  am  not  able  to  say  more."  Many 
eyes  were  directed  towards  that  part  of  the  house  where  Finch 
sate.  The  highly  honourable  manner  in  which  he  had  quitted  a 
lucrative  office,  as  soon  as  he  had  found  that  he  could  not  keep 
it  without  supporting  the  dispensing  power,  and  the  conspicuous 
part  which  he  had  borne  in  the  defence  of  the  Bishops,  had 
done  much  to  atone  for  his  faults.  Yet,  on  this  day,  it  could 
not  be  forgotten  that  he  had  strenuously  exerted  himself,  as 
counsel  for  the  Crown,  to  obtain  that  judgment  which  was 
now  to  be  solemnly  revoked,  lie  rose,  and  attempted  to  de- 
fend his  conduct :  but  neither  his  legal  acuteness,  nor  that  fluent 
and  sonorous  elocution  which  was  in  his  family  a  hereditary 
gift,  and  of  which  none  of  his  family  had  a  larger  share  than 
himself,  availed  him  on  this  occasion.  The  House  was  in  no 
humour  to  hear  him,  and  repeatedly  interrupted  him  by  cries  of 
"  Order."  He  had  been  treated,  he  was  told,  with  great  indul- 
gence. No  accusation  had  been  brought  against  him.  Why 
then  should  he,  under  pretence  of  vindicating  himself,  attempt 
to  throw  dishonourable  imputations  on  an  illustrious  name,  and 
to  apologise  for  a  judicial  murder  ?  He  was  forced  to  sit  down, 
after  declaring  that  he  meant  only  to  clear  himself  from  the 
charge  of  having  exceeded  the  limits  of  his  professional  duty, 
that  he  disclaimed  all  intention  of  attacking  the  memory  of  Lord 
Russell,  and  that  he  should  sincerely  rejoice  at  the  reversing  of 
the  attainder.  Before  the  House  rose  the  bill  was  read  a 
second  time,  and  would  have  been  instantly  read  a  third  time 
and  passed,  had  not  some  additions  and  omissions  been  proposed, 
which  would,  it  was  thought,  make  the  reparation  more  complete. 
The  amendments  were  prepared  with  great  expedition  :  the 
Lords  agreed  to  them  ;  and  the  King  gladly  gave  his  assent.* 

*  Grey's  Debates,  March  1C88-9. 


34G  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

This  bill  was  soon  followed  by  three  other  bills  which  an- 
nulled three  wicked  and  infamous  judgments,  the  judgment 
against  Sidney,  the  judgment  against  Cornish,  and  the  judgment 
against  Alice  Lisle.* 

O 

Some  living  Whigs  obtained  without  difficulty  redress  for 
injuries  which  they  had  suffered  in  the  late  reign.  The  sen- 
tence of  Samuel  Johnson  was  taken  into  consideration  by  the 
House  of  Commons.  It  was  resolved  that  the  scourging  which 
he  had  undergone  was  cruel,  and  that  his  degradation  was  of  no 
legal  effect.  The  latter  proposition  admitted  of  no  dispute  :  for 
he  had  been  degraded  by  the  prelates  who  had  been  appointed 
to  govern  the  diocese  of  London  during  Compton's  suspension. 
Compton  had  been  suspended  by  a  decree  of  the  High  Com- 
mission ;  and  the  decrees  of  the  High  Commission  were  uni- 
versally acknowledged  to  be  nullities.  Johnson  had  therefore 
been  stripped  of  his  robe  by  persons  who  had  no  jurisdiction  over 
him.  The  C<  mmons  requested  the  King  to  compensate  the 
sufferer  by  some  ecclesiastical  preferment.f  William,  however, 
found  that  he  could  not,  without  great  inconvenience,  grant  this 
request.  For  Johnson,  though  brave,  honest,  and  religious,  had 
always  been  rash,  mutinous  and  quarrelsome  ;  and,  since  he  had 
endured  for  his  opinions  a  martyrdom  more  terrible  than  death, 
the  infirmities  of  his  temper  and  understanding  had  increased  to 
such  a  degree  that  he  was  as  offensive  to  Low  Churchmen  as  to 
High  Churchmen.  Like  too.  many  other  men,  who  are  not 
to  be  turned  from  the  path  of  right  by  pleasure,  by  lucre,  or  by 
danger,  he  mistook  the  impulses  of  his  pride  and  resentment  for 
the  monitions  of  conscience,  and  deceived  himself  into  a  belief 
that  in  treating  friends  and  foes  with  indiscriminate  insolence 
and  asperity,  he  was  merely  showing  his  Christian  faithfulness 
and  courage.  Burnet,  by  exhorting  him  to  patience  and  for- 
giveness of  injuries,  made  him  a  mortal  enemy.  "  Tell  his  Lord- 
ship," said  the  inflexible  priest,  "  to  mind  his  own  business,  and 

*  The  Acts  -which  reversed  the  attainders  of  Russell,  Sidney,  Cornish,  and 
Alice  Lisle  were  private  Acts.  Only  the  titles  therefore  are  printed  in  the  Stat- 
ute Book  :  hut  the  Acts  will  be  found  in  Howell's  Collection  of  State  Trials. 

•f  Commons'  Journals,  June  24, 1C89. 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  347 

to  let  me  look  after  mine."*  It  soon  began  to  be  whispered 
that  Johnson  was  mad.  He  accused  Burnet  of  being  the  author 
of  the  report,  and  avenged  himself  by  writing  libels  so  violent 
that  they  strongly  confirmed  the  imputation  which  they  were 
meant  to  refute.  The  King  thought  it  better  to  give  out  of  his 
own  revenue  a  liberal  compensation  for  wrongs  which  the  Com- 
mons had  brought  to  his  notice  than  to  place  an  eccentric  and 
irritable  man  in  a  situation  of  dignity  and  public  trust.  John- 
son was  gratified  with  a  present  of  a  thousand  pounds  and  a 
pension  of  three  hundred  a  year  for  two  lives.  His  son  was 
also  provided  for  in  the  public  service,  t 

While  the  Commons  were  considering  the  case  of  Johnson, 
the  Lords  were  scrutinising  with  severity  the  proceedings  which 
had,  in  the  late  reign,  been  instituted  against  one  of  their  own  or- 
der, the  Earl  of  Devonshire.  The  judges  who  had  passed  sen- 
tence on  him  were  strictly  interrogated ;  and  a  resolution  was 
passed  declaring  that  in  his  case  the  privileges  of  the  peerage 
had  been  infringed,  and  that  the  Court  of  King's  Bench,  in 
punishing  a  hasty  blow  by  a  fine  of  thirty  thousand  pounds,  had 
violated  common  justice  and  the  Great  Charter.  J 

In  the  cases  which  have  been  mentioned,  all  parties  seem  to 
have  agreed  in  thinking  that  some  public  reparation  was  due. 
But  the  fiercest  passions  both  of  Whigs  and  Tories  were  soon 
roused  by  the  noisy  claims  of  a  wretch  whose  sufferings,  great 
as  they  might  seem,  had  been  trifling  when  compared  with  his 
crimes.  Gates  had  come  back,  like  a  ghost  from  the  place  of 
punishment,  to  haunt  the  spots  which  had  been  polluted  by  his 
guilt.  The  three  years  and  a  half  which  followed  his  scourging 
he  had  passed  in  one  of  the  cells  of  Newgate,  except  when  on 
certain  days,  the  anniversaries  of  his  perjuries,  he  had  been 
brought  forth  and  set  on  the  pillory.  He  was  still,  however, 
regarded  by  many  fanatics  as  a  martyr ;  and  it  was  said  that 
they  were  able  so  far  to  corrupt  his  keepers  that,  in  spite  of 

*  Johnson  tells  this  story  himself  in  his  strange  pamphlet  entitled,  Notes 
upon  the  Phoenix  Edition  of  the  Pastoral  Letter,  1694.  • 

t  Some  Memorials  of  the  Reverend  Samuel  Johnson,  prefixed  to  the  folio 
edition  of  his  works,  1710. 

t  Lords'  Journals,  May  15, 1689. 


348  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

positive  orders  from  the  government,  his  sufferings  were  miti- 
gated by  many  indulgences.  While  offenders,  who,  compared 
with  him,  were  innocent,  grew  lean  on  the  prison  allowance, 
his  cheer  was  mended  by  turkeys  and  chines,  capons  and  suck- 
ing pigs,  venison  pasties  and  hampers  of  claret,  the  offerings  of 
zealous  Protestants.*  When  James  had  fled  from  Whitehall 
and  when  London  was  in  confusion,  it  was  moved,  in  the  Coun- 
cil of  Lords  which  had  provisionally  assumed  the  direction  of 
affairs,  that  Gates  should  be  set  at  liberty.  The  motion  was 
rejected:  f  but  the  gaolers,  not  knowing  whom  to  obey  in  that 
time  of  anarchy,  and  desiring  to  conciliate  a  man  who  had  once 
been,  and  might  perhaps  again  be,  a  terrible  enemy,  allowed 
their  prisoner  to  go  freely  about  the  town.J  His  uneven  legs 
and  his  hideous  face,  made  more  hideous  by  the  shearing  which 
his  ears  had  undergone,  were  now  again  seen  every  day  in  West-^ 
minster  Hall  and  the  Court  of  Requests. §  He  fastened  himself 
on  his  old  patrons,  and,  in  that  drawl  which  he  affected  as  a 
mark  of  gentility,  gave  them  the  history  of  his  wrongs  and  of 
his  hopes.  It  was  impossible,  he  said,  that  now,  when  the  good 
cause  was  triumphant,  the  discoverer  of  the  plot  could  be  over- 
looked. "  Charles  gave  me  nine  hundred  pounds  a  year.  Sure 
William  will  give  me  more."  || 

In  a  few  weeks  he  brought  his  sentence  before  the  House  of 
Lords  by  a  writ  of  error.  This  is  a  species  of  appeal  which 
raises  no  question  of  fact.  The  Lords,  while  sitting  judicially 
on  the  writ  of  error,  were  not  competent  to  examine  whether 
the  verdict  which  pronounced  Gates  guilty  was  or  was  not  ac- 

*  North's  Examen.  224.    North's  evidence  is  confirmed  by  several  contempo- 
rary S'juibs  in  prose  and  verse.    See  also  the  fi/cwy  fipoTo/ioi'yov,  1697. 

f  Halifax  MS.  in  the  British  Museum. 

t  Epistle  Dedicatory  to  Oates's  I'IKUV   /laciZucrf. 

§  In  a  ballad  of  the  time  are  the  following  lines  : 

"  Come  listen,  ye  Whigs,  to  my  pitiful  moan. 

All  you  that  have  cars,  when  the  Doctor  has  none." 

These  lines  must  have  been  in  Mason's  head  when  he  wrote  the  couplet — 
"  Witness,  ye  Hills,  ye  Johnsons,  Scots,  Shebheares  ; 

•  Hark  to  my  call  :  for  some  of  you  have  cars." 

II  North's  Examen,  224,254.  North  says  "  six  hundred  a  year."  But  I  havo 
taken  the  larger  sum  from  the  impudent  petition  which  Gates  addressed  to  the 
Commons,  July  25,  1689-  See  the  Journals. 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  349 

cording  to  the  evidence.  All  that  they  had  to  consider  was 
whether,  the  verdict  being  supposed  to  be  according  to  the  evi- 
dence, the  judgment  was  legal.  But  it  would  have  been  difficult  even 
for  a  tribunal  composed  of  veteran  magistrates,  and  was  almost 
impossible  for  an  assembly  of  noblemen  who  were  all  strongly 
biassed  on  one  side  or  on  the  other,  and  among  whom  there  was 
at  that  time  not  a  single  person  whose  mind  had  been  disciplined 
by  the  study  of  jurisprudence,  to  look  steadily  at  the  mere  point 
of  law,  abstracted  from  the  special  circumstances  of  the  case. 
In  the  view  of  one  party,  a  party  which  even  among  the  AVhig 
peers  was  probably  a  small  minority,  the  appellant  was  a  man 
who  had  rendered  inestimable  services  to  the  cause  of  liberty 
and  religion,  and  who  had  been  requited  by  long  confinement, 
by  degrading  exposure,  and  by  torture  not  to  be  thought  of 
without  a  shudder.  The  majority  of  the  House  more  justly 
regarded  him  as  the  falsest,  the  most  malignant,  and  the  most 
impudent  being  that  had  ever  disgraced  the  human  form.  The 
eight  of  that  brazen  forehead,  the  accents  of  that  lying  tongue, 
deprived  them  of  all  mastery  over  themselves.  Many  of  them 
doubtless  remembered  with  shame  and  remorse  that  they  had 
been  his  dupes,  and  that,  on  the  very  last  occasion  on  which  he 
had  stood  before  them,  he  had  by  perjury  induced  them  to  shed 
the  blood  of  one  of  their  own  illustrious  order.  It  was  not  to 
be  expected  that  a  crowd  of  gentlemen  under  the  influence  of 
feelings  like  these  would  act  with  the  cold  impartiality  of  a 
court  of  justice.  Before  they  came  to  any  decision  on  the  legal 
question  which  Titus  had  brought  before  them,  they  picked  a 
succession  of  quarrels  with  him.  He  had  published  a  paper 
magnifying  his  merits  and  his  sufferings.  The  Lords  found  out 
some  pretence  for  calling  this  publication  a  breach  of  privilege, 
and  sent  him  to  the  Marshalsea.  '  He  petitioned  to  be  released : 
but  an  objection  was  raised  to  his  petition.  He  had  described 
himself  as  a  Doctor  of  Divinitv  ;  and  their  lordships  refused  to 
acknowledge  him  as  such.  He  was  brought  to  their  bar,  and 
asked  where  he  had  graduated.  He  answered,  "  At  the  uni- 
versity of  Salamanca."  This  was  no  new  instance  of  his  men- 
dacity and  effrontery.  His  Salamanca  degree  had  been,  during 


350  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

many  years,  a  favourite  theme  of  all  the  Tory  satirists  from 
Dryden  downwards  ;  and  even  on  the  Continent  the  Salamanca 
Doctor  was  a  nickname  in  ordinary  use.*  The  Lords,  in  their 
hatred  of  Gates,  so  far  forgot  their  own  dignity  as  to  treat  this 
ridiculous  matter  seriously.  They  ordered  him  to  efface  from, 
his  petition  the  words  "  Doctor  of  Divinity."  He  replied  that 
he  could  not  in  conscience  do  it;  and  he  was  accordingly  sent 
back  to  gaol.f 

These  preliminary  proceedings  indicated,  not  obscurely,  what 
the  fate  of  the  writ  of  error  would  be.  The  counsel  for  Gates 
had  been  heard.  No  counsel  appeared  against  him.  The 
Judges  were  required  to  give  their  opinions.  Nine  o.f  them 
were  in  attendance ;  and  among  the  nine  were  the  Chiefs  of 
the  three  Courts  of  Common  Law.  The  unanimous  answer  of 
these  grave,  learned,  and  upright  magistrates  was  that  the 
Court  of  King's  Bench  was  not  competent  to  degrade  a  priest 
from  his  sacred  office,  or  to  pass  a  sentence  of  perpetual  impris- 
onment; and  that  therefore  the  judgment  against  Gates  was 
contrary  to  law,  and  ought  to  be  reversed.  The  Lords  should 
undoubtedly  have  considered  themselves  as  bound  by  this  opin- 
ion. That  they  knew  Gates  to  be  the  worst  of  men  was  nothing 
to  the  purpose.  To  them,  sitting  as  a  court  of  Justice,  he 
ought  to  have  been  merely  a  John  of  Style,  or  a  John  of  Nokes. 
But  their  indignation  was  violently  excited.  Their  habits  were 
not  those  which  fit  men  for  the  discharge  of  judicial  duties. 
The  debate  turned  almost  entirely  on  matters  to  which  no  allu- 
sion ought  to  have  been  made.  Not  a  single  peer  ventured  to 
affirm  that  the  judgment  was  legal:  but  much  was  said  about 
the  odious  character  of  the  appellant,  about  the  impudent  accu- 
sation which  he  had  brought  against  Catharine  of  Braganza, 
and  about  the  evil  consequences  which  might  follow  if  so  bad  a 
man  were  capable  of  being  a  witness.  "  There  is  only  one 
way,"  said  the  Lord  President,  "  in  which  I  can  consent  to 
reverse  the  fellow's  sentence.  He  has  been  whipped  from 

Van  CiMors,  in  bis  despatches  to  the  State  General,  uses  this  nickname  quite 
gravely. 

t  .Lords'  Journals,  May  GO,  1689. 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  351 

Aldgate  to  Tyburn.  He  ought  to  be  whipped  from  Tyburn 
back  to  Aldgate."  The  question  was  put.  Twenty-three  peers 
voted  for  reversing  the  judgment ;  thirty-five  for  affirming  it.* 
This  decision  produced  a  great  sensation,  and  not  without 
reason.  A  question  was  now  raised  which  might  justly  excite 
the  anxiety  of  every  man  in  the  kingdom.  That  question  was 
whether  the  highest  tribunal,  the  tribunal  on  which,  in  the  last 
resort,  depended  the  most  precious  interests  of  every  English 
subject,  was  at  liberty  to  decide  judicial  questions  on  other  than 
judicial  grounds,  and  to  withhold  from  a  suitor  what  was  ad- 
mitted to  be  his  legal  right,  on  account  of  the  depravity  of  his 
moral  character.  That  the  supreme  Court  of  Appeal  ought  not 
to  be  suffered  to  exercise  arbitrary  power  under  the  forms  of 
ordinary  justice,  was  strongly  felt  by  the  ablest  men  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  and  by  none  more  strongly  than  by  Somers. 
With  him,  and  with  those  who  reasoned  like  him,  were,  on  this 
occasion,  allied  all  the  weak  and  hotheaded  zealots  who  still 
regarded  Gates  as  a  public  benefactor,  and  who  imagined  that 
to  question  the  existence  of  the  Popish  plot  was  to  question  the 
truth  of  the  Protestant  religion.  On  the  very  morning  after 
the  decision  of  the  Peers  had  been  pronounced,  keen  reflections 
were  thrown,  in  the  House  of  Commons,  on  the  justice  of  their 
lordships.  Three  days  later,  the  subject  was  brought  forward 
by  a  Whig  Privy  Councillor,  Sir  Robert  Howard,  member  for 
Castle  Rising.  He  was  one  of  the  Berkshire  branch  of  his 
noble  family,  a  branch  which  enjoyed,  in  that  age,  the  unenvi- 
able distinction  of  being  wonderfully  fertile  of  bad  rhymers. 
The  poetry  of  the  Berkshire  Howards  was  the  jest  of  three 
generations  of  satirists.  The  mirth  began  with  the  first  repre- 
sentation of  the  Rehearsal,  and  continued  down  to  the  last  edition 
of  the  Dunciad.f  But  Sir  Robert,  in  spite  of  his  bad  verses, 

*  Lords'  Journals,  May  31, 1689.    Commons'  Journals,  Aug.  2 ;  North's  Ex- 
amen,  234  ;  Luttrell's  Diary. 

t  Sir  Robert  was  the  original  hero  of  the  Rehearsal,  and  was  called  Bilboa. 
In  the  remodelled  Dtinciail,  Pope  inserted  the  lines — 

"  And  highborn  Howard,  more  majestic  sire, 
With  Fool  of  Quality  completes  the  quire." 

Pope's  highborn  Howard  was  Edward  Howard,  the  author  of  the  British  Princes. 
Dorset  ridiculed  Edward  Howard's  poetry  in  a  short  satire,  in  which  thought  aiid 
wit  are  packed  as  close  as  in  the  iiuest  passages  of  lludibras. 


352  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

and  of  some  foibles  and  vanities  which  had  caused  him  to  be 
brought  on  the  stage  under  the  name  of  Sir  Positive  Atall,  had 
in  Parliament  the  weight  which  a  stanch  party  man,  of  ample 
fortune,  of  illustrious  name,  of  ready  utterance,  and  of  resolute 
spirit,  can  scarcely  fail  to  possess.*  When  he  rose  to  call  the 
attention  of  the  Commons  to  the  case  of  Gates,  some  Tories, 
animated  by  the  same  passions  which  had  prevailed  in  the  other 
House,  received  him  with  loud  hisses.  In  spite  of  this  most 
unparliamentary  insult,  he  persevered ;  and  it  soon  appeared 
that  the  majority  was  with  him.  Some  orators  extolled  the 
patriotism  and  courage  of  Gates  :  others  dwelt  much  on  a  pre- 
vailing rumour,  that  the  solicitors  who  were  employed  against 
him  on  behalf  of  the  Crown  had  distributed  large  sums  of  money 
among  the  jurymen.  These  were  topics  on  which  there  was 
much  difference  of  opinion.  But  that  the  sentence  was  illegal 
was  a  proposition  which  admitted  of  no  dispute.  The  most 
eminent  lawyers  in  the  House  of  Commons  declared  that,  on 
this  point,  they  entirely  concurred  in  the  opinion  given  by  *he 
Judges  in  the  House  of  Lords.  Those  who  had  hissed  when  the 
subject  was  introduced  were  so  effectually  cowed  that  they  did 
not  venture  to  demand  a  division  ;  and  a  bill  annulling  the  sen- 
tence was  brought  in,  without  any  opposition. f 

The  Lords  were  in  an  embarrassing  situation.  To  retract 
was  not  pleasant.  To  engage  in  a  contest  with  the  Lower 
House,  on  a  question  on  which  that  House  was  clearly  in  the 
right,  and  was  backed  at  once  by  the  opinions  of  the  sages  of 
the  law,  and  by  the  passions  of  the  populace,  might  be  dan- 
gerous. It  was  thought  expedient  to  take  a  middle  course. 
An  address  was  presented  to  the  King,  requesting  him  to  par- 
don Gates. £  But  this  concession  only  made  bad  worse.  Titus 
had,  like  every  other  human  being,  a  right  to  justice :  but  he 
was  not  a  proper  object  of  mercy.  If  the  judgment  against 
him  was  illegal,  it  ought  to  have  been  reversed.  If  it  was  legal, 


*  Key  to  the  Rehearsal ;  Shadwell's  Sullen  Lovers  ;    Pepys,  May  5,  8,  16C8 ; 
Evelyn,*  Feb.  1C,  1684-5. 

t  Grey's  Debates  and  Commons'  Journals,  June  4,  and  11, 1G89. 
t  Lords'  Journals,  June  C,  1C89. 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  353 

there  was  no  ground  for  remitting  any  portion  of  it.  The  Com- 
mons, very  properly,  persisted,  passed  their  bill  and  sent  it  up 
to  the  Peers.  Of  this  bill  the  only  objectionable  part  was  the 
preamble,  which  asserted,  not  only  that  the  judgment  was  ille- 
gal, a  proposition  which  appeared  on  the  face  of  the  record  to  be 
true,  but  also  that  the  verdict  was  corrupt,  a  proposition  which 
whether  true  or  false,  was  certainly  not  proved. 

The  Lords  were  in  a  great  strait.  They  knew  that  they 
were  in  the  wrong.  Yet  they  were  determined  not  to  proclaim, 
iu  their  legislative  capacity,  that  they  had,  in  their  judicial 
capacity,  been  guilty  of  injustice.  They  again  tried  a  middle 
course.  The  preamble  was  softened  down  :  a  clause  was  added 
which  provided  that  Gates  should  still  remain, incapable  of  be- 
ing a  witness  ;  and  the  bill  thus  altered  was  returned  to  the 
Commons. 

The  Commons  were  not  satisfied.  They  rejected  the  amend- 
ments, and  demanded  a  free  conference.  Two  eminent  Tories, 
Rochester  and  Nottingham,  took  their  seats  in  the  Painted 
Chamber  as  managers  for  the  Lords.  With  them  was  joined 
Burnet,  whose  well  known  hatred  of  Popery  was  likely  to  give 
weight  to  what  he  might  say  on  such  an  occasion.  Somers  was 
the  chief  orator  on  the  other  side  :  and  to  his  pen  we  owe  a 
singularly  lucid  and  interesting  abstract  of  the  debate. 

The  Lords  frankly  owned  that  the  judgment  of  the  Court  of 
King's  Bench  could  not  be  defended.  They  knew  it  to  be  illegal, 
and  had  known  it  to  be  so  even  when  they  affirmed  it.  But  they 
had  acted  for  the  best.  They  accused  Oates  of  bringing  an  impu- 
dently false  accusation  against  Queen  Catharine  ;  they  mentioned 
other  instances  of  his  villany  ;  and  they  asked  whether  such  a  man 
ought  still  to  be  capable  of  giving  testimony  in  a  court  of  jus- 
tice. The  only  excuse  which  in  their  opinion  could  be  made 
for  him  was,  that  he  was  insane  ;  and  in  truth,  the  incredible 
insolence  and  absurdity  of  his  behaviour  when  he  was  last  before 
them  seemed  to  warrant  the  belief  that  his  brain  had  been  turn- 
ed, and  that  he  was  not  to  be  trusted  with  the  lives  of  other 
men.  The  Lords  could  not  therefore  degrade  themselves  by  ex- 
pressly rescinding  what  they  had  done  ;  nor  could  they  consent  to 
VOL.  III.— 23 


354  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

pronounce  the  verdict  corrupt  on  no  better  evidence  than  com- 
mon report. 

The  reply  was  complete  and   triumphant.     "  Gates  is  now 
the  smallest  part  of  the  question.     He   has,  Your   Lordships 
say,  falsely  accused  the  Queen  Dowager  and  other  innocent  per- 
sons.    Be  it  so.     This  bill  gives  him  no   indemnity.     We  are 
quite  willing,  that,  if  he  is  guilty,  he  shall  be  punished.     But 
for  him,  and  for  all  Englishmen,  we   demand  that  punishment 
shall  be  regulated  by  law,  and  not  by  the  arbitrary  discretion 
of  any  tribunal.     We  demand  that  when  a  writ  of  error  is  be- 
fore Your  Lordships,  you  shall  give   judgment  on  it  according 
to  the  known  customs  and  statutes  of  the  realm.     We  deny  that 
you  have  any  right,  on  such  an  occasion,  to  take  into  considera- 
tion the  moral  character  of  a  plaintiff  or  the  political  effect  of  a 
decision.      It   is    acknowledged  by   yourselves   that  you  have, 
merely  because  you  thought  ill  of  this  man,  affirmed  a  judg- 
ment which  you  knew  to  be   illegal.     Against  this   assumption 
of  arbitrary  power   the  Commons   protest ;  and  they  hope  that 
you  will  now  redeem  what  you  must  feel  to  be  an  error.  Your 
Lordships  intimate  a  suspicion  that  Gates  is  mad.  That  a  man  is 
mad  may  be  a  very  good   reason  for  not  punishing  him  at  all. 
But  how  it  can  be  a  reason  for  inflicting  on  him   a  punishment 
which  would  be  illegal  even  if  he  were  sane,  the  Commons  do 
not  comprehend.     Your   Lordships   think  that  you  should  not 
be  justified  in  calling  a  verdict  corrupt  which  has   not  been 
legally  proved  to  be  so.     Suffer  us  to  remind  you  that  you  have 
two  distinct  functions  to  perform.    You  are  judges,  and  you  are 
legislators.     When  you  judge,  your  duty  is  strictly  to  follow  the 
law.     When  you  legislate,  you  may  properly  take   facts  from 
common  fame.     You  invert  this  rule.  You  are  lax  in  the  wrong 
place,  and  scrupulous  in  the  wrong  place.     As  judges  you  break 
through  the  law  for  the   sake  of   a  supposed   convenience.      As 
legislators,  you  will  not  admit  any  fact  without  such   technical 
proof  as  it  is  rarely  possible  for  legislators  to  obtain."  * 

This  reasoning  was  not  and  could  not  be  answered.      The 

*  Commons'  Journals,  Aug.  2,  1689 ;    Dutch  Ambassadors  Extraordinary  to 
tlie  States  General,  ^lly^°i 

AUg.    J( 


*  WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  355 

Commons  were  evidently  flushed  with  their  victory  in  the  argu- 
ment, and  proud  of  the  appearance  which  Somers  had  made  in 
the  Painted  Chamber.  They  particularly  charged  him  to  see 
that  the  report  which  he  had  made  of  the  conference  was 
accurately  entered  in  the  journals.  The  Lords  very  wisely 
abstained  from  inserting  in  their  records  an  account  of  a  debate 
in  which  they  had  been  so  signally  discomfited.  But,  though 
conscious  of  their  fault  and  ashamed  of  it,  they  could  not  be 
brought  to  do  public  penance  by  owning  in  the  preamble  of  the 
Act,  that  they  had  been  guilty  of  injustice.  The  minority  was, 
however,  strong.  The  resolution  to  adhere  was  carried  by  only 
twelve  votes,  of  which  ten  were  proxies.*  Twenty -one  Peers 
protested.  The  bill  dropped.  Two  Masters  in  Chancery  were 
sent  to  announce  to  the  Commons  the  final  resolution  of  the 
Peers.  The  Commons  thought  this  proceeding  unjustifiable  in 
substance  and  uncourteous  in  form.  They  determined  to  remon- 
strate ;  and  Somers  drew  up  an  excellent  manifesto,  in  which 
the  vile  name  of  Gates  was  scarcely  mentioned,  and  in  which  the 
Upper  House  was  with  greait  earnestness  and  gravity  exhorted 
to  treat  judicial  questions  judicially,  and  not,  under  pretence  of 
administering  law,  to  make  law.f  The  wretched  man,  who  had 
now  a  second  time  thrown  the  political  world  into  confusion,  re- 
ceived a  pardon,  and  was  set  at  liberty.  His  friends  in  the  Lower 
House  moved  an  address  to  the  Throne,  requesting  that  a  pension 
sufficient  for  his  support  might  be  granted  to  him.J  He  was 
consequently  allowed  about  three  hundred  a  year,  a  sum  which 
he  thought  unworthy  of  his  acceptance,  and  which  he  took  with 
the  savage  snarl  of  disappointed  greediness. 

From  the  dispute  about  Gates  sprang  another  dispute,  which 
might  have  produced  very  serious  consequences..  The  instrument 
which  had  declared  William  and  Mary  King  and  Queen  was  a 
revolutionary  instrument.  It  had  been  drawn  up  by  an  assembly 
unknown  to  the  ordinary  law,  and  had  never  received  the  royal 
sanction.  It  was  evidently  desirable  that  this  great  contract 

*  Lords'  Journals,  July  30,  1689  ;  Luttrell's  Diary  ;  Clarendon's  Diary ,JuIy  31, 
1GS9. 

t  See  the  Commons'  Journals  of  July  31,  and  August  13, 1689. 
t  Commons'  Journals,  Aug.  20. 


356  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

between  the  governors  and  the  governed,  this  titledeed  by  which 
the  King  held  his  throne  and  the  people  their  liberties,  should  be 
put  iuto  a  strictly  regular  form.  The  Declaration  of  Rights  was 
therefore  turned  into  a  Bill  of  Rights  ;  and  the  Bill  of  Rights 
speedily  passed  the  Commons  :  but  in  the  Lords  difficulties 
arose. 

The  Declaration  had  settled  the  crown,  first  on  "William  and 
Mary  jointly,  then  on  the  survivor  of  the  two,  then  on  Mary's 
posterity,  then  on  Anne  and  her  posterity,  and,  lastly,  on  the 
posterity  of  William  by  any  other  wife  than  Mary.  The  Bill 
had  been  drawn  inexact  conformity  with  the  Declaration.  Who 
was  to  succeed  if  Mary,  Anne,  and  William  should  all  die  with- 
out posterity  was  left  in  uncertainty.  Yet  the  event  for  which 
no  provision  was  made  was  far  from  improbable.  Indeed  it 
really  came  to  pass.  William  had  never  had  a  child.  Anne  had 
repeatedly  been  a  mother,  but  had  no  child  living.  It  would 
not  be  very  strange  if  in  a  few  months  disease,  war,  or  treason 
should  remove  all  those  who  stood  in  the  entail.  In  what  state 
would  the  country  then  be  left  ?  1*0  whom  would  allegiance  be 
due?  The  Bill  indeed  contained  a  clause  which  excluded 
Papists  from  the  throne.  But  would  such  a  clause  supply  tho 
place  of  a  clause  designating  the  successor  by  name  ?  What  if 
the  next  heir  should  be  a  prince  of  the  House  of  Savoy  not  three 
months  old  ?  It  would  be  absurd  to  call  such  an  infant  a  Papist. 
Was  he  then  to  be  proclaimed  King  ?  Or  was  the  crown  to  be 
in  abeyance  till  he  came  to  an  age  at  which  he  might  be  capable 
of  choosing  a  religion?  Might  not  the  most  honest  and  the  most 
intelligent  men  be  in  doubt  whether  they  ought  to  regard  him 
as  their  Sovereign  ?  And  to  whom  could  they  look  for  a  solution 
of  this  doubt  ?  Parliament  there  would  be  none  :  for  the  Par- 
liament would  expire  with  the  prince  who  had  convoked  it. 
There  would  be  mere  anarchy,  anarchy  which  might  end  in  the 
destruction  of  the  monarchy,  or  in  the  destruction  of  public 
liberty.  For  these  weighty  reasons,*Burnet,  at  William's  sug- 
gestion, proposed  in  the  House  of  Lords  that  the  crown  should, 
failing  heirs  of  His  Majesty's  body,  be  entailed  on  an  undoubted 
Protestant,  Sophia,  Duchess  of  Brunswick  Lunenburg,  grand- 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  357 

daughter  of  James  the  First,  and  daughter  of  Elizabeth,  Queen 
of  Bohemia. 

The  Lords  unanimously  assented  to  this  amendment :  but 
the  Commons  unanimously  rejected  it.  The  cause  of  the  rejec- 
tion no  contemporary  writer  has  satisfactorily  explained.  One 
Whig  historian  talks  of  the  machinations  of  the  republicans, 
another  of  the  machinations  of  the  Jacobites.  But  it  is  quite 
certain  that  four  fifths  of  the  representatives  of  the  people  were 
neither  Jacobites  nor  republicans.  Yet  not  a  single  voice  was 
raised  in  the  Lower  House  in  favour  of  the  clause  which  in  the 
Upper  House  had  been  carried  by  acclamation.*  Ths  most 
probable  explanation  seems  to  be  that  the  gross  injustice  which 
had  been  committed  in  the  case  of  Gates  had  irritated  the  Com- 
mons to  such  a  degree  that  they  were  glad  of  an  opportunity  to 
quarrel  with  the  Peers.  A  conference  was  held.  Neither  as- 
sembly would  give  way.  While  the  dispute  was  hottest,  an 
event  took  place  which,  it  might  have  been  thought,  would  have 
restored  harmony.  Anne  gave  birth  to  a  sou.  The  child  was 
baptised  at  Hampton  Court  with  great  pomp,  and  with  many 
signs  of  public  joy.  William  was  one  of  the  sponsors.  The 
other  was  the  accomplished  Dorset,  whose  roof  had  given  shel- 
ter to  the  Princess  in  her  distress.  The  King  bestowed  his 
own  name  on  his  godson,  and  announced  to  the  splendid  circle 
assembled  round  the  font  that  the  little  William  was  henceforth 
to  be  called  Duke  of  Gloucester.! 

The  birth  of  this  child  had  greatly  diminished  the  risk  against 
which  the  Lords  had  thought  it  necessary  to  guard.  They  might 
therefore  have  retracted  with  a  good  grace.  But  their  pride  had 
been  wounded  by  the  severity  with  which  their  decision  on 
Oates's  writ  of  error  had  been  censured  in  the  Painted  Cham- 
ber. They  had  been  plainly  told  across  the  table  that  they 

*  Oldmixon  accuses  Ihe  Jacobites.  Burnet  the  republicans.  Though  Burnet 
took  a  prominent  part  in  the  discussion  of  this  question,  his  account  of  what 
passed  is  grossly  inaccurate.  He  says  that  the  clause  was  warmly  debated  in  the 
Commons,  and  that  Hampdeii  spoke  strongly  for  it.  But  we  learn  from  the 
Journals  (June  19,  16*9)  that  it  was  rejected  iteming  contradicente.  The  Dutch 
Ambassadors  describe  it  as  "  een  propositie  'twelck  geeu  ingressie  schynt  te 
eullen  vinden." 

t  London  Gazette,  Aug.  1, 1689  ;  Luttrell's  Diary. 


358  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

were  unjust  judges  ;  and  the  imputation  was  not  the  less  irri- 
tating because  they  were  conscious  that  it  was  deserved.  They 
refused  to  make  any  concession ;  and  the  Bill  of  Rights  was 
suffered  to  drop.* 

But  the  most  exciting  question  of  this  long  and  stormy  ses- 
sion was,  what  punishment  should  be  inflicted  on  those  men  who 
had,  during  the  interval  between  the  dissolution  of  the  Oxford 
Parliament  and  the  Revolution,  been  the  advisers  or  the  tools 
of  Charles  and  James.  It  was  happy  for  England  that,  at  this 
crisis,  a  prince  who  belonged  to  neither  of  her  factions,  who 
loved  neither,  who  hated  neither,  and  who,  for  the  accomplish- 
ment of  a  great  design,  wished  to  make  use  of  both,  was  the 
moderator  between  them. 

The  two  parties  were  now  in  a  position  closely  resembling 
that  in  which  they  had  been  twenty-eight  years  before.  The 
party  indeed  which  had  then  been  undermost  was  now  upper- 
most :  but  the  analogy  between  the  situations  is  one  of  the  most 
perfect  that  can  be  found  in  history.  Both  the  Restoration  and 
the  Revolution  were  accomplished  by  coalitions.  At  the  Res- 
toration, those  politicians  who  were  peculiarly  zealous  for  lib- 
erty assisted  to  reestablish  monarchy :  at  the  Revolution  those 
politicians  who  were  peculiarly  zealous  for  monarchy  assisted 
to  vindicate  liberty.  The  Cavalier  would,  at  the  former  con- 
juncture, have  been  able  to  effect  nothing  without  the  help  of 
Puritans  who  had  fought  for  the  Covenant ;  nor  would  the 
Whig,  at  the  latter  conjuncture,  have  offered  a  successful  resist- 
ance to  arbitrary  power,  had  he  not  been  backed  by  men  who 
had  a  very  short  time  before  condemned  resistance  to  arbitrary 
power  as  a  deadly  sin.  Conspicuous  among  those  by  whom,  in 
1GGO,  the  royal  family  was  brought  back,  were  Hollis,  who  had, 
in  the  days  of  the  tyranny  of  Charles  the  First,  held  down  the 
Speaker  in  the  chair  by  main  force,  while  Black  Rod  knocked 
for  admission  in  vain ;  Ingoldsby,  whose  name  was  subscribed 
to  the  memorable  death  warrant ;  and  Prynne,  whose  ears  Laud 
had  cut  off,  and  who,  in  return,  had  borne  the  chief  part  in  cut- 

*  The  history  of  this  Bill  may  be  traced  in  the  Journals  of  the  two  Houses, 
and  in  Grey's  Debates. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  359 

ting  off  Laud's  head.  Among  the  seven  who,  in  1G88,  signed  the 
invitation  to  William  were  Compton,  who  had  long  enforced 
the  duty  of  obeying  Nero  ;  Danby,  who  had  been  impeached 
for  endeavouring  to  establish  military  despotism  ;  and  Lumley, 
whose  bloodhounds  had  tracked  Monmouth  to  that  last  sad 
hidingplace  among  the  fern.  Both  in  1660  and  in  1688,  while 
the  fate  of  the  nation  still  hung  in  the  balance,  forgiveness  was 
exchanged  between  the  hostile  factions.  On  both  occasions  the 
reconciliation,  which  had  seemed  to  be  cordial  in  the  hoar  of 
danger,  proved  false  and  hollow  in  the  hour  of  triumph.  As 
soon  as  Charles  the  Second  was  at  Whitehall,  the  Cavalier  for- 
got the  good  service  recently  done  by  the  Presbyterians,  and 
remembered  only  their  old  offences.  As  soon  as  William  was 
King,  too  many  of  the  Whigs  began  to  demand  vengeance  for 
all  that  they  had,  in  the  days  of  the  Rye  House  plot,  suffered 
at  the  hands  of  the  Tories.  On  both  occasions  the  Sovereign 

O 

found  it  difficult  to  save  the  vanquished  party  from  the  fury  of 
his  triumphant  supporters  ;  and  on  both  occasions  those  whom 
he  had  disappointed  of  their  revenge  murmured  bitterly  against 
the  government  which  had  been  so  weak  and  ungrateful  as  to 
protect  its  foes  against  its  friends. 

So  early  as  the  twenty-fifth  of  March,  William  called  the 
attention  of  the  Commons  to  the  expediency  of  quieting  the 
public  mind  by  an  amnesty.  He  expressed  his  hope  that  a  bill 
of  general  pardon  and  oblivion  would  be  as  speedily  as  possible 
presented  for  his  sanction,  and  that  no  exceptions  would  be  made, 
except  such  as  were  absolutely  necessary  for  the  vindication  of 
public  justice  and  for  the  safety  of  the  state.  The  Commons 
unanimously  agreed  to  thank  him  for  this  instance  of  his  pater- 
nal kindness :  but  they  suffered  many  weeks  to  pass  without 
taking  any  step  towards  the  accomplishment  of  his  wish.  When 
at  length  the  subject  was  resumed,  it  was  resumed  in  such  a 
manner  as  plainly  showed  that  the  majority  had  no  real  inten- 
tion of  putting  an  end  to  the  suspense  which  embittered  the 
lives  of  all  those  Tories  who  were  conscious  that,  in  their  zeal 
for  prerogative,  they  had  sometimes  overstepped  the  exact  line 
traced  by  law.  Twelve  categories  were  trained,  some  of  which 


3 GO  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

were  so  extensive  as  to  include  tens  of  thousands  of  delinquents  ; 
and  the  House  resolved  that,  under  every  one  of  these  categories, 
some  exceptions  should  be  made.  Then  came  the  examination, 
into  the  cases  of  individuals.  Numerous  culprits  and  witnesses 
were  summoned  to  the  bar  ;  the  debates  were  long  and  sharp  ; 
and  it  soon  became  evident  that  the  work  was  interminable. 
The  summer  glided  away  :  the  autumn  was  approaching :  the 
session  could  not  last  much  longer ;  and  of  the  twelve  distinct 
inquisitions,  which  the  Commons  had  resolved  to  institute,  only 
three  had  been  brought  to  a  close.  It  was  necessary  to  let  the 
bill  drop  for  that  year.* 

Among  the  many  offenders  whose  names  were  mentioned  in 
the  course  of  these  enquiries  was  one  who  stood  alone  and  un- 
approached  in  guilfc  and  infamy,  and  whom  Whigs  and  Tories 
were  equally  willing  to  leave  to  the  extreme  rigour  of  the  law. 
On  that  terrible  day  which  was  succeeded  by  the  Irish  Night, 
the  roar  of  a  great  city  disappointed  of  its  revenge  had  fol- 
lowed Jeffreys  to  the  drawbridge  of  the  Tower.  His  imprison- 
ment was  not  strictly  legal :  but  he  at  first  accepted  with  thanks 
and  blessings  the  protection  which  those  dark  walls,  made  famous 
by  so  many  crimes  and  sorrows,  afforded  him  against  the  fury 
of  the  multitude.f  Soon,  however,  he  became  sensible  that  his 
life  was  still  in  imminent  peril.  For  a  time  he  flattered  himself 
with  the  hope  that  a  writ  of  Habeas  Corpus  would  liberate 
him  from  his  confinement,  and  that  he  should  be  able  to  steal 
away  to  some  foreign  country,  and  to  hide  himself  with  part  of 
his  illgotten  wealth  from  the  detestation  of  mankind :  but,  till 
the  government  was  settled,  there  was  no  Court  competent  to 
grant  a  writ  of  Habeas  Corpus ;  and,  as  soon  as  the  government 
had  been  settled,  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act  was  suspended.  £ 
Whether  the  legal  guilt  of  murder  could  be  brought  home  to 
Jeffreys  may  be  doubted.  But  he  was  morally  guilty  of  so  many 

*  See  Grey's  debates,  and  the  Commons'  Journals  from  March  to  July.  The 
twelve  categories  -will  be  found  in  the  Journals  of  the  23rd  arid  29th  of  May  and 
of  the  8th  of  June. 

t  Halifax  MS,  in  the  British  Museum. 

t  The  Life  and  Death  of  George  Lord  Jeffreys ;  Finch's  speech  in  Grey'a 
Debates,  March  1,  1688-9. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  361 

murders  that,  if  there  had  been  no  other  way  of  reaching  his 
life,  a  retrospective  Act  of  Attainder  would  have  been  clamor- 
ously demanded  by  the  whole  nation.  A  disposition  to  triumph 
over  the  fallen  has  never  been  one  of  the  besetting  sins  of  En- 
glishmen :  but  the  hatred  of  which  Jeffreys  was  the  object  was 
without  a  parallel  in  our  history,  and  partook  but  too  largely  of 
the  savageness  of  his  own  nature.  The  people,  where  he  was  con- 
cerned, were  as  cruel  as  himself,  and  exulted  in  his  misery  as  he 
had  been  accustomed  to  exult  in  the  misery  of  convicts  listening  to 
the  sentence  of  death,  and  of  families  clad  in  mourning.  The  rab- 
ble congregated  before  his  deserted  mansion  in  Duke  Street,  and 
read  on  the  door,  with  shouts  of  laughter,  the  bills  announcing 
the  sale  of  his  property.  Even  delicate  women,  who  had  tears 
for  highwaymen  and  housebreakers,  breathed  nothing  but  ven- 
geance against  him.  The  lampoons  on  him  which  were  hawked 
about  the  town  were  distinguished  by  an  atrocity  rare  even  in 
those  days.*  Hanging  would  be  too  mild  a  death  for  him :  a 
grave  under  the  gibbet  would  be  too  respectable  a  resting  place : 
he  ought  to  be  whipped  to  death  at  the  cart's  tail :  he  ought  to 
be  tortured  like  an  Indian  :  he  ought  to  be  devoured  alive.  The 
street  poets  portioned  out  all  his  joints  with  cannibal  ferocity, 
and  computed  how  many  pounds  of  steaks  might  be  cut  from 
his  well  fattened  carcass.  Nay,  the  rage  of  his  enemies  was 
such  that,  in  language  seldom  heard  in  England,  they  proclaim- 
ed their  wish  that  he  might  go  to  the  place  of  wailing  and  gnash- 
ing of  teeth,  to  the  worm  that  never  dies,  to  the  fire  that  is 
never  quenched.  They  exhorted  him  to  hang  himself  in  his 
garters,  and  to  cut  his  throat  with  his  razor.  They  put  up 
horrible  prayers  that  he  might  not  be  able  to  repent,  that  he  might 
die  the  same  hard-hearted,  wicked  Jeffreys  that  he  had  lived. 
His  spirit,  as  mean  in  adversity  as  insolent  and  inhuman  in 

*  See  among  many  other  pieces,  Jeffreys's  Elegy,  the  Letter  to  the  Lord 
Chancellor  exposing  to  him  the  sentiments  of  the  people,  the  Elegy  on  Danger- 
field,  Dangertield'g  Ghost  to  Jeffreys,  the  Humble  Petition  of  Willows  and 
fatherless  Children  in  the  West,  the  Lord  Chancellor's  Discovety  and  Confession 
made  in  the  Time  of  his  Sickness  in  the  Tower  ;  Hickeringill's  Ceremony-monger; 
a  broadside  entitled  "  O  rare  show  !  O  rare  sisiht !  O  strange  monster  !  The 
like  not  in  Europe  !  To  be  seeii  uear  Tower  Hill,  a  few  doors  beyond  the  Lion'a 
deu." 


362  HISTORT   OP   ENGLAND. 

prosperity,  sank  under  the  load  of  public  abhorrence.  His  con- 
stitution, originally  bad,  and  much  impaired  by  intemperance, 
was  completely  broken  by  anxiety.  He  was  tormented  by  a 
cruel  internal  disease,  which  the  most  skilful  surgeons  of  that 
age  were  seldom  able  to  relieve.  One  solace  was  left  to  him, 
brandy.  Even  when  he  had  causes  to  try  and  councils  to  at- 
tend, he  had  seldom  gone  to  bed  sober.  Now,  when  he  had 
nothing  to  occupy  his  mind  save  terrible  recollections  and  ter- 
rible forebodings,  he  abandoned  himself  without  reserve  to  his 
favourite  vice.  Many  believed  him  to  be  bent  on  shortening 
his  life  by  excess.  He  thought  it  better,  they  said,  to  go  off  in 
a  drunken  fit  than  to  be  hacked  by  Ketch,  or  torn  limb  from 
limb  by  the  populace. 

Once  he  was  roused  from  a  state  of  abject  despondency  by 
an  agreeable  sensation,  speedily  followed  by  a  mortifying  dis- 
appointment. A  parcel  had  been  left  for  him  at  the  Tower. 
It  appeared  to  be  a  barrel  of  Colchester  oysters,  his  favourite 
dainties.  He  was  greatly  moved  :  for  there  are  moments  when 
those  who  least  deserve  affection  are  pleased  to  think  that  they 
inspire  it.  "  Thank  God,"  he  exclaimed,  "  I  have  still  some 
friends  left."  He  opened  the  barrel ;  and  from  among  a  heap 
of  shells  out  tumbled  a  stout  halter.* 

It  does  not  appear  that  one  of  the  flatterers  or  buffoons 
whom  he  had  enriched  out  of  the  plunder  of  his  victims  came 
to  comfort  him  in  the  day  of  trouble.  But  he  was  not  left  in 
utter  solitude.  John  Tutchin,  whom  he  had  sentenced  to  be 
flogged  every  fortnight  for  seven  years,  made  his  way  into  the 
Tower,  and  presented  himself  before  the  fallen  oppressor.  Poor 
Jeffreys,  humbled  to  the  dust,  behaved  with  abject  civility,  and 
called  for  wine.  "  I  am  glad,  sir,"  he  said,  "  to  see  .yon."  "  And 
I  am  glad,"  answered  the  resentful  Whig,  "  to  see  Your  Lord- 
ship in  this  place."  "  I  served  my  master,"  said  Jeffreys  :  "  I 
was  bound  in  conscience  to  do  so."  "  Where  was  your  con- 
science," said  Tutchin,  "  when  you  passed  that  sentence  on  me 
at  Dorchester  ?  "  "  It  was  set  down  in  my  instructions,"  an- 
swered Jeffreys,  fawningly,  "  that  I  was  to  show  no  mercy  to 
*  Life  and  Death  of  George  Lord  Jeffreys. 


WILLIAM  AND   MARY.  363 

men  like  you,  men  of  parts  and  courage.  "When  I  went  back 
to  court  I  was  reprimanded  for  my  lenity."  *  Even  Tutchin, 
acrimonious  as  was  his  nature,  and  great  as  were  his  wrongs, 
seems  to  have  been  a  little  mollified  by  the  pitiable  spectacle 
which  he  had  at  first  contemplated  with  vindictive  pleasure.  He 
always  denied  the  truth  of  the  report  that  he  was  the  person 
who  sent  the  Colchester  barrel  to  the  Tower. 

A  more  benevolent  man,  John  Sharp,  the  excellent  Dean  of 
Norwich,  forced  himself  to  visit  the  prisoner.  It  was  a  painful 
task  :  but  Sharp  had  been  treated  by  Jeffreys,  in  old  times,  as 
kindly  as  it  was  in  the  nature  of  Jeffreys  to  treat  anybody,  and 
had  once  or  twice  been  able,  by  patiently  waiting  till  the  storm 
of  curses  and  invectives  had  spent  itself,  and  by  dexterously 
seizing  the  moment  of  good  humour,  to  obtain  for  unhappy 
families  some  mitigation  of  their  sufferings.  The  prisoner  was 
surprised  and  pleased.  "  What,"  he  said,  "  dare  you  own  me 
now  ?  "  It  was  in  vain,  however,  that  the  amiable  divine  tried 
to  give  salutary  pain  to  that  seared  conscience.  Jeffreys,  instead 
of  acknowledging  his  guilt,  exclaimed  vehemently  against  the 
injustice  of  mankind.  "  People  call  me  a  murderer  for  doing 
what  at  the  time  was  applauded  by  some  who  are  now  high  in 
public  favour.  They  call  me  a  drunkard  because  I  take  punch 
to  relieve  me  in  my  agony."  He  would  not  admit  that,  as 
President  of  the  High  Commission,  he  had  done  anything  that 
deserved  reproach.  His  colleagues,  he  s;iid,  were  the  real  crim- 
inals ;  and  now  they  threw  all  the  blame  on  him.  He  spoke 
with  peculiar  asperity  of  Sprat,  who  had  undoubtedly  been  the 
most  humane  and  moderate  member  of  the  board. 

It  soon  became  clear  that  the  wicked  judge  was  fast  sink- 
ing under  the  weight  of  bodily  and  mental  suffering.  Doctor 
John  Scott,  prebendary  of  Saint  Paul's,  a  clergyman  of  great 
sanctity,  and  author  of  the  Christian  Life,  a  treatise  once 
widely  renowned,  was  summoned,  probably  on  the  recom- 
mendation of  his  intimate  friend  Sharp,  to  the  bedside  of  the 
dying  man.  It  was  in  vain,  however,  that  Scott  spoke,  as 
Sharp  had  already  spoken,  of  the  hideous  butcheries  of  Dor- 

*  Tutchin  himself  gives  this  narrative  in  the  Bloody  Assizes. 


304  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

Chester  and  Taunton.  To  the  last  Jeffreys  continued  to  re- 
peat that  those  who  thought  him  cruel  did  not  know  what 
his  orders  were,  that  he  deserved  praise  instead  of  blame,  and 
that  his  clemency  had  drawn  on  him  the  extreme  displeasure  of 
his  master.* 

Disease,  assisted  by  strong  drink  and  by  misery,  did  its 
work  fast.  The  patient's  stomach  rejected  all  nourishment. 
He  dwindled  in  a  few  weeks  from  a  portly  and  even  corpulent 
man  to  a  skeleton.  On  the  eighteenth  of  April  he  died,  in  the 
forty-first  year  of  his  age.  He  had  been  Chief  Justice  of  the 
King's  Bench  at  thirty -five,  and  Lord  Chancellor  at  thirty-seven. 
In  the  whole  history  of  the  English  bar  there  is  no  other  in- 
stance of  so  rapid  an  elevation,  or  of  so  terrible  a  fall.  The 
emaciated  corpse  was  laid,  with  all  privacy,  next  to  the  corpse 
of  Monmouth  in  the  chapel  of  the  Tower.f 

The  fall  of  this  man,  once  so  great  and  so  much  dreaded, 
the  horror  with  which  he  was  regarded  by  all  the  respectable 
members  of  his  own  party,  the  manner  in  which  the  least 
respectable  members  of  that  party  renounced  fellowship  with 
him  in  his  distress,  and  threw  on  him  the  whole  blame  of  crimes 

*  See  the  life  of  Archbishop  Sharp  by  his  son.  "What  passed  between  Scott 
and  Jeffreys  was  related  by  Scott  to  Sir  Joseph  Jekyl.  See  Tindall's  History  ; 
Eachard,  iii.  932.  Eachard's  informant,  who  is  not  named,  but  who  seems  to 
have  had  good  opportunities  of  knowing  the  truth,  said  that  Jeffreys  died,  not, 
as  the  vulgar  believed,  of  drink,  but  of  the  stone.  The  distinction  is  of  little 
importance.  It  is  certain  that  Jeffreys  was  grossly  intemperate  ;  and  his  malady 
was  one  which  intemperance  notoriously  tends  to  aggravate. 

t  See  a  full  and  True  Account  of  the  Death  of  George  Lord  Jeffreys,  licensed 
on  the  day  of  his  death.  The  wretched  Le  Noble  was  never  weary  of  repeating 
that  Jeffreys  was  poisoned  by  the  usurper.  I  will  give  a  short  passage  as  a  spe- 
cimen of  the  calumnies  of  which  William  was  the  object.  "  II  envoya,"  say* 
Pasquin,  "  ce  fin  ragout  de  champignons  au  Chancelier  Jeffreys,  prisonnier  dans 
la  Tour,  qui  les  trouva  du  meme  goust,  et  du  meme  assaisonnement  que  furent 
le-iderniers  dont  Agrippine  regala  le  bonhomme  Claudius  son  epoux,  et  que 
Keron  appella  depuis  la  viande  de  Dieux."  Marforio  asks  :  "  Le  Chancelier  est 
done  Mort  dans  la  Tour?"  Pasquin  answers:  "II  estoit  trop  fidele  &  son  I5oi 
legitime,  et  trop  habile  dans  les  loix  du  royaume,  pour  eohapper  a  1'Usnrpateur 
qu'il  no  vouloit  point  reconnoistre.  Guillemot  prit  soin  de  faire  publier  que  ce 
malheureux  prisonnier  estoit  attaque  d'une  tievre  maligne  :  mais,  a  parler  fran- 
ohement,  il  vivroit  peut-estre  encore,  s'il  n'avoit  rien  mange  que  de  la  main  de 
BOS  anciens  cuisiniers." — Le  Festin  de  Guillemot,  1689.  JDangeau  (May  7.)  men- 
tions a  report  that  Jeffreys  had  poisoned  himself.  In  1093  the  corpse  of  Jeffreys 
was,  by  the  royal  permission,  removed  from  the  chapel  of  the  Tower,  and  laid  m 
the  Church  of  St.  Mary  Aldermary. 


"WILLIAM    AXD    MART.  365 

which  they  had  encouraged  him  to  commit,  ought  to  have  been 
a  lesson  to  those  intemperate  friends  of  liberty  who  were  clam- 
ouring for  a  new  proscription.  But  it  was  a  lesson  which  too 
many  of  them  disregarded.  The  King  had,  at  the  very  com- 
mencement of  his  reign,  displeased  them  by  appointing  a  few 
Tories  and  Trimmers  to  high  offices;  and  the  discontent  excited 
by  these  appointments  had  been  inflamed  by  his  attempt  to 
obtain  a  general  amnesty  for  the  vanquished.  He  was  in  truth 
not  a  man  to  be  popular  with  the  vindictive  zealots  of  any  fac- 
tion. For  among  his  peculiarities  was  a  certain  ungracious 
humanity  which  rarely  conciliated  his  foes,  which  of  ten  provoked 
his  adherents,  but  in  which  he  doggedly  persisted,  without 
troubling  himself  either  about  the  thanklessness  of  those  whom 
he  had  saved  from  destruction,  or  about  the  rage  of  those  whom 
he  had  disappointed  of  their  revenge.  Some  of  the  Whigs  now 
spoke  of  him  as  bitterly  as  they  had  ever  spoken  of  either  of 
his  uncles.  He  was  a  Stuart  after  all,  and  was  not  a  Stuart  for 
nothing.  Like  the  rest  of  the  race,  he  loved  arbitrary  power. 
In  Holland,  he  had  succeeded  in  making  himself,  under  the 
forms  of  a  republican  polity,  scarcely  less  absolute  than  the  old 
hereditary  Counts  had  been.  In  consequence  of  a  strange  com- 
bination of  circumstances,  his  interest  had,  during  a  short  time, 
coincided  with  the  interest  of  the  English  people  :  but,  though 
he  had  been  a  deliverer  by  accident,  he  was  a  despot  by  nature. 
He  had  no  sympathy  with  the  just  resentments  of  the  Whigs. 
He  had  objects  in  view  which  the  Whigs  would  not  willingly 
suffer  any  Sovereign  to  attain.  He  knew  that  the  Tories  were 
the  only  tools  for  his  purpose.  He  had,  therefore,  from  the 
moment  at  which  he  took  his  seat  on  the.  throne,  favoured 
them  unduly.  He  was  now  trying  to  procure  an  indemnity 
for  those  very  delinquents  whom  he  had,  a  few  months  before, 
described  in  his  declaration  as  deserving  of  exemplary  punish- 
ment. In  November  he  had  told  the '  world  that  the  crimes 
in  \vhich  these  men  had  borne  a  part  had  made  it  the  duty  of 
subjects  to  violate  their  oath  of  allegiance,  of  soldiers  to  desert 
their  standards,  of  children  to  make  war  on  their  parents. 
With  what  consistency  then  could  he  recommend  that  such 


3G6  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

crimes  should  be  covered  by  a  general  oblivion  ?  And 
there  not  too  much  reason  to  fear  that  he  wished  to  save  th<> 
agents  of  tyranny  from  the  fate  which  they  merited,  in  tho 
hope  that,  at  some  future  time,  they  might  serve  him  as  un- 
scrupulously as  they  had  served  his  father  in  law  ?  * 

Of  the  members  of  the  House  of  Commons  who  were  ani- 
mated by  these  feelings,  the  fiercest  and  most  audacious  was 
Howe.  He  went  so  far  on  one  occasion  as  to  move  that  an  en- 
quiry should  be  instituted  into  the  proceedings  of  the  Parlia- 
ment of  1685,  and  that  some  note  of  infamy  should  be  put  on 
all  who,  in  that  Parliament,  had  voted  with  the  Court.  This 
absurd  and  mischievous  motion  was  'discountenanced  by  all  the 
most  respectable  Whigs,  and  strongly  opposed  by  Birch  and 
Maynard.f  Howe  was  forced  to  give  way  :  but  he  was  a  man 
whom  no  check  could  a.bash  :  and  he  was  encouraged  by  the 
applau-e  of  many  hotheaded  members  of  his  party,  who  were 
far  from  foreseeing  that  he  would,  after  having  been  the  most 
rancorous  and  unprincipled  of  Whigs,  become,  at  no  distant 
time,  the  most  rancorous  and  unprincipled  of  Tories. 

This  quickwitted,  restless,  and  malignant  politician,  though 
himself  occupying  a  lucrative  place  in  the  royal  household,  de- 
claimed, day  after  day,  against  the  manner  in  which  the  great 
offices  of  state  were  filled  ;  and  his  declamations  were  echoed  in 
tones  somewhat  less  sharp  and  vehement,  by  other  orators.  No 
man,  they  said,  who  had  been  a  minister  of  Charles  or  of  James 
ou«-ht  to  be  a  minister  of  William.  The  first  attack  was  directed 

o 

against  the  Lord  President  Caermarthen.  Howe  moved  that 
an  address  should  be  presented  to  the  King,  requesting  that  all 
persons  who  had  ever  been  impeached  by  the  Commons 
might  be  dismissed  from  His  Majesty's  counsels  and  presence. 

*  Among  the  numerous  pieces  in  which  the  malecontent  Whigs  vented  their 
anger,  none  is  more  curious  than  the  poem  entitled  the  Ghost  of  Charles  the 
Second.  Charles  addresses  William  thus  : 

"  Hail,  my  blest  Nephew,  whom  the  fates  ordain 
To  fill  the  measure  of  the  Stuarts'  reign. 
That  all  the  ills  by  our  whole  race  designed 
In  thee  their  full  accomplishment  might  find  : 
"Tis  thou  that  f.rt  decreed  this  point  to  clear, 
Whieh  we  have  laboured  for  these  four-scoie  year." 

f  Grey's  Debates,  June  12, 1089. 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  367 

The  debate  on  this  motion  was  repeatedly  adjourned.  "While 
the  event  was  doubtful.  William  sent  Dykvelt  to  expostulate 
with  Howe.  Howe  was  obdurate.  He  was  what  is  vulgarly 
called  a  disinterested  man  ;  that  is  to  say,  he  valued  money  less 
than  the  pleasure  of  venting  his  spleen  and  of  making  a  sensa- 
tion. "  I  am  doing  the  King  a  service,"  he  said  :  "  I  am  res- 
cuing him  from  false  friends ;  and,  as  to  my  place,  that  shall 
never  be  a  gag  to  prevent  me  from  speaking  my  mind."  The 
motion  was  made,  but  completely  failed.  In  truth  the  proposi- 
tion, that  mere  accusation,  never  prosecuted  to  conviction,  ought 
to  be  considered  as  a  decisive  proof  of  guilt,  was  shocking  to 
natural  justice.  The  faults  of  Caermarthen  had  doubtless  been 
great ;  but  they  had  been  exaggerated  by  party  spirit,  had  been 
expiated  by  severe  suffering,  and  had  been  redeemed  by  recent 
and  eminent  services.  At  the  time  when  he  raised  the  great 
county  of  York  in  arms  against  Popery  and  tyranny,  he  had 
been  assured  by  some  of  the  most  eminent  Whigs  that  all  old 
quarrels  were  forgotten.  Howe  indeed  maintained  that  the 
civilities  which  had  passed  in  the  moment  of  peril  signified  no- 
thing. "When  a  viper  is  on  my  hand,"  he  said,  "lam  very 
tender  of  him :  but  as  soon  as  I  have  him  on  the  ground,  I  set 
my  foot  on  him  and  crush  him."  The  Lord  President,  how- 
ever, was  so  strongly  supported  that,  after  a  discussion  which 
lasted  three  days,  his  enemies  did  not  venture  to  take  the  sense 
of  the  House  on  the  motion  against  him.  In  the  course  of  the 
debate  a  grave  constitutional  question  was  incidentally  raised. 
This  question  was  whether  a  pardon  could  be  pleaded  in  bar  of 
a  parliamentary  impeachment.  The  Commons  resolved  without 
a  division,  that  a  pardon  could  not  be  so  pleaded.* 

The  next  attack  was  made  on  Halifax.  He  was  in  a  much 
more  invidious  position  than  Caermarthen,  who  had.  under  pre- 
tence of  ill  health,  withdrawn  himself  almost  entirely  from 
business.  Halifax  was  generally  regarded  as  the  chief  adviser 
of  the  Crown,  and  was  in  an  especial  manner  held  responsible 
for  all  the  faults  which  had  been  committed  with  respect  to 

«  See  Commons'  Journals,  and  Grey's  Debates,  June  1, 3  and  4, 1C89  :    Life  of 
William,  1704. 


368  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

Ireland.  The  evils  which  had  brought  that  kingdom  to  ruin 
might,  it  was  said,  have  been  averted  by  timely  precaution,  or 
remedied  by  vigorous  exertion.^  But  the  government  had  fore- 
seen nothing  :  it  had  done  little  ;  and  that  little  had  been  done 

~ 

neither  at  the  right  time  nor  in  the  right  way.  Negotiation 
had  been  employed  instead  of  troops,  when  a  few  troops  might 
have  sufficed.  A  few  troops  had  been  sent  when  many  were 
needed.  The  troops  that  had  been  sent  had  been  ill  equipped 
and  ill  commanded.  Such,  the  vehement  Whigs  exclaimed, 
were  the  natural  fruits  of  that  great  error  which  King  William 
had  committed  on  the  first  day  of  his  reign.  lie  had  placed  in 
Tories  and  Trimmers  a  confidence  which  they  did  not  deserve. 
He  had,  in  a  peculiar  manner,  entrusted  the  direction  of  Irish 
affairs  to  the  Trimmer  of  Trimmers,  to  a  man  whose  ability  no- 
body disputed,  but  who  was  not  firmly  attached  to  the  new  gov- 
ernment, who,  indeed,  was  incapable  of  being  firmly  attached  to 
any  government,  who  had  always  halted  between  two  opinions, 
and  who,  till  the  moment  of  the  flight  of  James,  had  not  given  up 
the  hope  that  the  discontents  of  the  nation  might  be  quieted 
without  a  change  of  dynasty.  Howe,  on  twenty  occasions, 
designated  Halifax  as  the  cause  of  all  the  calamities  of  the 
country.  '  Monmouth  held  similar  language  in  the  House  of 
Peers.  Though  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury,  he  paid  nb  attention 
to  financial  business,  for  which  he  was  altogether  unfit,  and  of 
which  he  had  very  soon  become  weary.  His  whole  heart  was 
in  the  work  of  persecuting  the  Tories.  He  plainly  told  the 
King  that  nobody  who  was  not  a  Whig  ought  to  be  employed 
in  the  public  service.  William's  answer  was  cool  and  deter- 
mined. "  I  have  done  as  much  for  your  friends  as  I  can  do 
without  danger  to  the  state ;  and  I  will  do  no  more."  *  The 
only  effect  of  this  reprimand  was  to  make  Monmouth  more  fac- 
tious than  ever.  Against  Halifax  especially  he  intrigued  and 
harangued  with  indefatigable  animosity.  The  other  Whig 
Lords  of  the  Treasury,  Delamere  and  Capel,  were  scarcely  less 
eager  to  drive  the  Lord  Privy  Seal  from  office  ;  and  personal 

*  Burnet  MS.  Harl.  6584 ;  Avaux  to  De  Croissy,  June  16-26, 1689 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  3C9 

jealousy  and  antipathy  impelled  the  Lord  President  to  con- 
spire with  his  own  accusers  against  his  rival. 

What  foundation  there  may  have,  been  for  the  imputations 
thrown  at  this  time  on  Halifax  cannot  now  be  fully  ascertained. 
His  enemies,  though  they  interrogated  numerous  witnesses, 
and  though  they  obtained  William's  reluctant  permission  to  in- 
spect the  minutes  of  the  Privy  Council,  could  find  no  evidence 
which  would  support  a  definite  charge.*  But  it  was  undeniable 
that  the  Lord  Privy  Seal  had  acted  as  minister  for  Ireland,  and 
that  Ireland  was  all  but  lost.  It  is  unnecessary,  and  indeed 
absurd,  to  suppose,  as  many  Whigs  supposed,  that  his  adminis- 
tration was  unsuccessful  because  he  did  not  wish  it  to  be  success- 
ful. The  truth  seems  to  be  that  the  difficulties  of  the  situation 
were  great,  and  that  he,  with  all  his  ingenuity  and  eloquence, 
was  ill  qualified  to  cope  with  those  difficulties.  The  whole 
machinery  of  government  was  out  of  joint  ;  and  he  was  not  the 
man  to  set  it  right.  What  was  wanted  was  not  what  he  had  in 
large  measure,  wit,  taste,  amplitude  of  comprehension,  subtlety 
in  drawing  distinctions ;  but  what  he  had  not,  prompt  decision, 
indefatigable  energy,  and  stubborn  resolution.  His  mind  was 
at  best  of  too  soft  a  temper  for  such  work  as  he  had  now  to  do, 
and  had  been  recently  made  softer  by  severe  affliction.  He  had 
lost  two  sons  in  less  than  twelve  months.  A  letter  is  still  ex- 
tant, in  which  he  at  this  time  complained  to  his  honoured  friend 
Lady  Russell  of  the  desolation  of  his  hearth  and  of  the  cruel  in- 
gratitude of  the  Whigs.  We  possess,  also,  the  answer,  in  which 
she  gently  exhorted  him  to  seek  for  consolation  where  she  had 
found  it  under  trials  not  less  severe  than  his.f 

The  first  attack  on  him  was  made  in  the  Upper  House.  Some 
Whig  Peers,  among  whom  the  wayward  and  petulant  First  Lord 
of  the  Treasury  was  conspicuous,  proposed  that  the  King  should 
be  requested  to  appoint  a  new  Speaker.  The  friends  of  Halifax 
moved  and  carried  the  previous  question.  J  About  three  weeks 

*  As  to  the  minutes  of  the  Privy  Council,  see  the  Commons'  Journals  of  June 
22  and  2S,  and  of  July  3,  5,  13  and  16. 

t  The  letter  of  Halifax  to  Lady  Russell  is  dated  on  the  23d  of  July  16?°,  about 
a  fortnight  after  the  attack  on  him  in  tlie  Lords,  and  about  a  week  before  the 
attack  on  him  in  the  Commons. 

J  See  the  Lords'  Journals  of  July  10, 1689,  and  a  letter  from  London  uuiui 

VOL.  HI.— 24 


370  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

later  his  persecutors  brought  forward,  in  a  Committee  of  the 
whole  House  of  Commons,  a  resolution  which  imputed  to  him  no 
particular  crime  either  of  omission  or  of  commission,  but  which 
simply  declared  it  to  be  advisable  that  he  should  be  dismissed 
from  the  service  of  the  Crown.  The  debate  was  warm.  Mod- 
er,ate  politicians  of  both  parties  were  unwilling  to  put  a  stigma  on 
a  man,  not  indeed  faultless,  but  distinguished  both  by  his  abili- 
ties and  by  his  amiable  qualities.  His  accusers  saw  that  they 
could  not  carry  their  point,  and  tried  to  escape  from  a  decision 
which  was  certain  to  be  adverse  to  them,  by  proposing  that  the 
Chairman  should  report  progress.  But  their  tactics  were  discon- 
certed by  the  judicious  aad  spirited  conduct  of  Lord  Eland,  now 
the  Marquess's  only  son.  "  My  father  has  not  deserved,"  said 
the  young  nobleman,  "  to  be  thus  trilled  with.  If  you  think  him 
culpable,  say  so.  He  will  at  once  submit  to  your  verdict.  Dis- 
mission from  Court  has  no  terrors  for  him.  He  is  raised,  by  the 
goodness  of  God,  above  the  necessity  of  looking  to  office  for  the 
means  of  supporting  his  rank."  The  Committee  divided,  and 
Halifax  was  absolved  by  a  majority  of  fourteen.* 

Had  the  division  been  postponed  a  few  hours,  the  majority 
would  probably  have  been  much  greater.  The  Commons  voted 
under  the  impression  that  Londonderry  had  fallen,  and  that  all 
Ireland  was  lost.  Scarcely  had  the  House  risen  when  a  courier 
arrived  with  news  that  the  boom  on  the  Foyle  had  been  broken. 

July  11-21,  and  transmitted  by  Croissy  to  Avaux.  Don  Pedro  de  Ronquillo  men- 
tions this  attack  of  the  Whig  Lords  011  Halifax  in  a  despatch  of  which  I  cannot 
make  out  the  date. 

*  This  was  on  Saturday  the  3d  of  August.  As  the  division  was  in  Committee, 
the  numbers  do  not  appear  in  the  Journals.  Clarendon,  in  his  Diary,  says  that 
the  n;ajority  was  eleven.  But  Narcissus  Luttrell,  Oldmixon,  and  Tindal  agree 
in  putting  it  at  fourteen.  Most  of  the  little  information  which  I  have  been  able 
to  find  about  the  debate  is  contained  in  a  despatch  of  Don  Pedro  de  Ronquillo, 
"  Se  rosolvio,"  he  says,  "  que  el  sabado,  en  comity  de  toda  la  casa,  83  tratasse  del 
estado  de  la  nacion  para  reprcsentarle  al  Rey.  Empezose  por  acusar  al  Marques 
de  Olifax  ;  y  reconociendo  sus  emulos  que  no  tenian  partido  bestante,  quisieron 
remitir  para  otro  dia  esta  mocion  :  pero  el  Conde  de  Elan,  primogenito  del  Mar- 
ques de  Olifax.  miembro  de  la  casa,  les  dijo  que  su  padre  no  era  hombre  para 
andar  peloteando  con  el,  y  que  se  tubiesse  culpa  lo  acabasen  de  castipa'r.  que  el 
•no  havia  menester  estar  en  la  corte  para  portarse  conforme  A  su  estado,  pues 
Dios  le  havia  dado  abundamente  para  poderlo.ha7er  :  con  que  por  pluralidad  de 
voces  venfio  HU  partido."  I  suspect  that  Lord  EIav.d  meant  to  sneer  at  tha 
poverty  of  some  of  his  father's  persecutors,  and  at  the  greediness  of  others. 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  371 

He  was  speedily  followed  by  a  second,  who  announced  the 
raising  of  the  siege,  and  by  a  third  who  brought  the  tidings  of 
the  battle  of  Newton  Butler.  Hope  and  exultation  succeeded 
to  discontent  and  dismay.*  Ulster  was  safe  ;  and  it  was  confi- 
dently expected  that  Schomberg  would  speedily  reconquer 
Leinster,  Connaught,  and  Munster.  He  was  now  ready  to  set 
out.  The  port  of  Chester  was  the  place  from  which  he  was'  to 
take  his  departure.  The  army  which  he  was  to  command  had 
assembled  there  ;  and  the  Dee  was  crowded  with  men  of  war 
and  transports.  Unfortunately  almost  all  those  English  soldiers 
who  had  seen  war  had  been  sent  to  Flanders.  The  bulk  of  the 
force  destined  for.  Ireland  consisted  of  men  just  taken  from  the 
plough  and  the  threshing  floor.  There  was,  however,  an  excel- 
lent brigade  of  Dutch  troops  under  the  command  of  an  expe- 
rienced officer,  the  Count  of  Solmes.  Four  regiments,  one  of 
cavalry  and  three  of  infantry,  had  been  formed  out  of  the  French 
refugees,  many  of  whom  had  borne  arras  with  credit.  No 
person  did  more  to  promote  the  raising  of  these  regiments  than 
the  Marquess  of  Ruvigny.  He  had  been  during  many  years  an 
eminently  faithful  and  useful  servant  of  the  French  government. 
So  highly  was  his  merit  app  eciated  at  Versailles  that  he  had 
been  solicited  to  accept  indulgences  which  scarcely  any  other 
heretic  could  by  any  solicitation  obtain.  Had  he  chosen  to 
remain  in  his  native  country,  he  and  his  household  would  have 
been  permitted  to  worship  God  privately  according  to  their  own 
forms.  But  Ruvigny  rejected  all  offers,  cast  in  his  lot  with  his 
brethren,  and,  at  upwards  of  eighty  years  of  age,  quitted  Ver- 
sailles, where  he  might  still  have  been  a  favourite,  for  a  modest 
dwelling  at  Greenwich.  That  dwelling  was,  during  the  last 
months  of  his  life,  the  resort  of  all  that  was  most  distinguished 
among  his  fellow  exiles.  His  abilities,  his  experience,  and  his 
munificent  kindness,  made  him  the  undisputed  chief  of  the 
refugees.  He  was  at  the  same  time  half  an  Englishman :  for 
his  sister  had  been  Countess  of  Southampton,  and  he  was  uncle 
of  Lady  Russell.  He  was  long  past  the  time  of  action.  But 

»  This  change  of  feeling,  immediately  following  the  debate  ou  the  motion  fox 
removing  Halifax,  is  noticed  by  Kouquillo. 


orZ  HISTORY    OP   ENGLAND. 

his  two  sons,  both  men  of  eminent  courage,  devoted  their  swords 
to  the  service  of  William.  The  younger  son,  who  bore  the 
name  of  Caillemot,  was  appointed  colonel  of  one  of  the  Hu<me- 
not  regiments  of  foot.  The  two  other  regiments  of  foot  were 
commanded  by  La  Melloniere  and  Cambon,  officers  of  high 
reputation.  The  regiment  of  horse  was  raised  by  Schomberg 
himself,  and  bore  his  name.  Ruvigny  lived  just  long  enough 
to  see  these  arrangements  complete.* 

The  general  to  whom  the  direction  of  the  expedition  against 
Ireland  was  confided  had  wonderfully  succeeded  in  obtaining 
the  affection  and  esteem  of  the  English  nation.  He  had  been 
made  a  Duke,  a  Knight  of  the  Garter,  and  Master  of  the  Ord- 
nance; he  was  now  placed  at  the  head'of  an  army  ;  and  yet  his 
elevation  excited  none  of  that  jealousy  which  showed  itself  as 
often  as  any  mark  of  royal  favour  was  bestowed  on  Bentinck, 
on  Zulestein,  or  on  Auverquerque.  Schomberg's  military  skill 
was  universally  acknowledged.  He  was  regarded  by  all 
Protestants  as  a  confessor  who  had  endured  everything  short  of 
martyrdom  for  the  truth.  For  his  religion  he  had  resigned  a 
splendid  income,  had  laid  down  the  truncheon  of  a  Marshal  of 
France,  and  had,  at  near  eighty  years  of  age,  begun  the  world 
again  as  a  needy  soldier  of  fortune.  As  ho  had  no  connection 
with  the  United  Provinces,  and  had  never  belonged  to  the  little 
Court  of  the  Hague,  the  preference  given  to  him  over  English 
captains  was  justly  ascribed,  not  to  national  or  personal  partiality, 
but  to  his  virtues  and  his  abilities.  His  deportment  differed 
widely  from  that  of  the  other  foreigners  who  had  just  been 
created  English  peers.  They,  with  many  respectable  qualities, 
were,  in  tastes,  manners,  and  predilections,  Dutchmen,  and 
could  not  catch  the  tone  of  the  society  to  which  they  had  been 
transferred.  He  was  a  citizen  of  the  world,  had  travelled  over 
all  Europe,  had  commanded  armies  on  the  Meuse,  on  the  Ebro, 
and  on  the  Tagus,  had  shone  in  the  splendid  circle  ct'  Versailles, 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  373 

and  had  been  in  high  favour  at  the  Court  of  Berlin.  He  had 
often  been  taken  by  French  noblemen  for  a  French  nobleman. 
He  had  passed  some  time  in  England,  spoke  English  remarkably 
well,  accommodated  himself  easily  to  English  manners,  and  was 
often  seen  walking  in  the  park  with  English  companions.  In 
youth  his  habits  had  been  temperate  ;  and  his  temperance  had 
its  proper  reward,  a  singularly  green  and  vigorous  old  age.  At 
fourscore  he  retained  a  strong  relish  for  innocent  pleasures  :  he 
conversed  with  great  courtesy  and  sprightliness :  nothing  could 
be  in  better  taste  than  his  equipages  and  his  table  ;  and  every 
cornet  of  cavalry  envied  the  grace  and  dignity  with  which  the 
veteran  appeared  in  Hyde  Park  on  his  charger  at  the  head  of 
his  regiment.*  The  House  of  Commons  had,  with  general 
approbation,  compensated  his  losses  and  rewarded  his  services 
by  a  grant  of  a  hundred  thousand  pounds.  Before  he  set  out 
for  Ireland,  he  requested  permission  to  express  his  gratitude  for 
this  magnificent  present.  A  chair  was  set  for  him  within  the 
bar.  He  took  his  seat  there  with  the  mace  at  his  right  hand, 
rose,  and  in  a  few  graceful  words  returned  his  thanks  and  took 
his  leave.  The  Speaker  replied  that  the  Commons  could  never 
forget  the  obligation  under  which  they  already  lay  to  His  Grace, 
that  they  saw  him  with  pleasure  at  the  head  of  an  English  army, 
that  they  felt  entire  confidence  in  his  zeal  and  ability,  and  that, 
at  whatever  distance  he  might  be,  he  would  always  be  in  a 
peculiar  manner  an  object  of  their  care.  The  precedent  set  on 
this  interesting  occasion  was  followed  with  the  utmost  minute- 
ness, a  hundred  and  twenty -five  years  later,  on  an  occasion  more 
interesting  still.  Exactly  on  the  same  spot  on  which,  in  July 
1689,  Schomberg  had  acknowledged  the  liberality  of  the  nation, 
a  chair  was  set,  in  July  1814,  for  a  still  more  illustrious  warrior, 
who  came  to  return  thanks  for  a  still  more  splendid  mark  of 
public  gratitude.  Few  things  illustrate  more  strikingly  the 
peculiar  character  of  the  English  government  and  people  than 
the  circumstance  that  the  House  of  Commons,  a  popular  assembly, 

*  See  the  Abrtge'  de  la  Vie  de  Frederic  Due  de  Schomberg  by  Luzancy,  1690, 
the  Memoirs  of  Count  Dolma,  and  the  note  of  Saint  Simon  on  Dangeau's  Journal, 
July  30, 1690. 


374  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

should,  even  in  a  moment  of  joyous  enthusiasm,  have  adhered 
to  ancient  forms  with  the  punctilious  accuracy  of  a  College  of 
Heralds  ;  that  the  sitting  and  rising,  the  covering  and  the 
uncovering,  should  have  been  regulated  by  exactly  the  same 
etiquette  in  the  nineteenth  century  as  in  the  seventeenth  ;  and 
that  the  same  mace  which  had  been  held  at  the  right  hand  of 
Schomberg  should  have  been  held  in  the  same  position  at  the 
right  hand  of  Wellington.* 

Oil  the  twentieth  of  August  the  Parliament,  having  been 
constantly  engaged  in  business  during  seven  months,  broke  up, 
by  the  royal  command,  for  a  short  recess.  The  same  Gazette 
which  announced  that  the  Houses  had  ceased  to  sit  announced 
that  Schomberg  had  landed  in  Ireland,  f 

During  the  three  weeks  which  preceded  his  landing,  the  dis- 
may and  confusion  at  Dublin  Castle  had  been  extreme.  Disaster 
had  followed  disaster  so  fast  that  the  mind  of  James,  never  very 
firm,  had  been  completely  prostrated.  He  had  learned  first  that 
Londonderry  had  been  relieved  ;  then  that  one  of  his  armies  had 
been  beaten  by  the  Enniskilleners  ;  then  that  another  of  his 
armies  was  retreating,  or  rather  flying,  from  Ulster,  reduced  in 
numbers  and  broken  in  spirit ;  then  that  Sligo,  the  key  of  Con- 
naught,had  been  abandoned  to  the  Englishry.  He  had  found  it 
impossible  to  subdue  the  colonists,  even  when  they  were  left  al- 
most unaided.  He  might  therefore  well  doubt  whether  it  would  be 
possible  for  him  to  contend  against  them  when  they  were  backed 
by  an  English  army,  under  the  command  of  the  greatest  general 
living.  The  unhappy  prince  seemed,  during  some  days,  to  be 
sunk  in  d-espondency.  On  Avaux  the  danger  produced  a  very 
different  effect.  Now,  he  thought,  was  the  time  to  turn  the  war 
between  the  English  and  the  Irish  into  a  war  of  extirpation, 
and  to  make  it  impossible  that  the  two  nations  could  ever  be 
united  under  one  government.  With  this  view,  he  coolly  sub- 
mitted to  the  King  a  proposition  of  almost  incredible  atrocity. 
There  must  be  a  Saint  Bartholomew.  A  pretext  would  easily 
be  found.  No  doubt,  when  Schomberg  was  known  to  be  in 

*  See  the  Commons'  Journals  of  July  16,  16SO,  and  of  July  1, 1S14. 

t  Journals  of  Uie  Lordb  ami  Commons,  Aug.  20, 16&>;  London  Gazette,  Aug.  22. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  875 

Ireland,  there  would  be  some  excitement  in  those  fouthern 
towns  of  which  the  population  was  chiefly  English.  Any  dis- 
turbance, wherever  it  might  take  place,  would  furnish  an  ex- 
cuse for  a  general  massacre  of  the  Protestants  of  Leinster, 
Munster,  and  Connaught.*  As  the  King  did  not  at  first  ex- 
press any  horror  at  this  suggestion,!  the  Envoy,  a  few  days 
later,  returned  to  the  subject,  and  pressed  His  Majesty  to  give 
the  necessary  orders.  Then  James,  with  a  warmth  which  did 
him  honour,  declared  that  nothing  should  induce  him  to  commit 
such  a  crime.  "  These  people  are  my  subjects :  and  I  cannot 
be  so  cruel  as  to  cut  their  throats  while  they  live  peaceably 
under  my  government."  "  There  is  nothing  cruel,"  answered 
the  callous  diplomatist,  "  in  what  I  recommend.  Your  Majesty 
ought  to  consider  that  mercy  to  Protestants  is  cruelty  to  Catho- 
lics." James,  however,  was  not  to  be  moved;  and  Avaux  re- 
tired in  very  bad  humour.  His  belief  was  that  the  King's  pro- 
fessions of  humanity  were  hypocritical,  and  that,  if  the 
orders  for  the  butchery  were  not  given,  they  were  not  given 
only  because  His  Majesty  was  confident  that  the  Catholics  all 
over  the  country  would  fall  on  the  Protestants  without  wait- 
ing for  orders. t  But  Avaux  was  entirely  mistaken.  That 
he  should  have  supposed  James  to  be  as  profoundly  immoral  as 
himself  is  not  strange.  But  it  is  strange  that  so  able  a  man 
should  have  forgotten  that  James  and  himself  had  quite  differ- 
ent objects  in  view.  The  object  of  the  Ambassador's  politics 
•was  to  make  the  separation  between  England  and  Ireland  eter- 
nal. The  object  of  the  King's  politics  was  to  unite  England 
and  Ireland  under  his  own  sceptre ;  and  he  could  not  but  be 
aware  that,  if  there  should  be  a  general  massacre  of  the 
Protestants  of  three  provinces,  and  he  should  be  suspected  of 

*  "  J'estois  d'avis  qu',  apres  que  la  descente  seroit  faite,  si  on  apprenoit  que 
des  Protestaiis  se  fussent  soulevez  en  quelques  endroits  du  royaume,  oil  fit  main 
busse  sur  tous  generalement." — Avaux. '  "  *  ''1*  16S9. 

T  "  Le  Roy  d'Angleterre  m'avoit  £cout?  assez  paisiblement  la  premiere  foia 
qne  jelay  avois  propose  ce  qu'il  y  avoit  a  faire  centre  les  Protestans."—  Avaux, 
Aug.  4-14. 

t  Avanx,  An<r.  4-14.  He  pays.  "  Je  m'imagine  qu'il  est  persuade  que,  quoi- 
qn'il  ne  donne  point  d'ordre  sur  cela,  la  pluparl  des  Callioliquea  de  la  campa^ue 
Be  jeUerout  sur  les  Proiestaaa." 


376  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

having  authorised  it  or  of  having  connived  at  it,  there  would  in 
a  fortnight  be  not  a  Jacobite  left  even  at  Oxford.* 

Just  a4  this  time  the  prospects  of  James,  which  had  seemed 
hopelessly  dark,  began  to  brighten.  The  danger  which  unnerved 
him  had  roused  the  Irish  people.  They  had,  six  months  before, 
risen  up  as  one  man  against  the  Saxons.  The  army  which  Tyr- 
connel  had  formed  was,  in  proportion  to  the  population  from 
which  it  was  taken,  the  largest  that  Europe  had  ever  seen.  But 
that  army  had  sustained  a  long  succession  of  defeats  and  disgraces, 
unredeemed  by  a  single  brilliant  achievement.  It  was  the  fash- 
ion, both  in  England  and  on  the  Continent,  to  ascribe  those 
defeats  and  disgraces  to  the  pusillanimity  of  the  Irish  race.f 
That  this  was  a  great  error  is  sufficiently  proved  by  the  history 
of  every  war  which  has  been  carried  on  in  any  part  of  Christen- 
dom during  five  generations.  The  raw  material  out  of  which  a 
good  army  may  be  formed  existed  in  great  abundance  among  the 
Irish.  Avaux  informed  his  government  that  they  were  a  re- 
markably handsome,  tall,  and  well  made  race  ;  that  they  were 
personally  brave  ;  that  thfey  were  sincerely  attached  to  the  cause 
for  which  they  were  in  arms  ;  that  they  were  violently  exasper- 
ated against  the  colonists.  After  extolling  their  strength  and 
spirit,  he  proceeded  to  explain  why  it  was  that,  with  all  their 
strength  and  spirit,  they  were  constantly  beaten.  It  was  vain, 
he  said,  to  imagine  that  bodily  prowess,  animal  courage,  or 
patriotic  enthusiasm  would,  in  the  day  of  battle,  supply  the  place 
of  discipline.  The  infantry  were  ill  armed  and  ill  trained.  They 
were  suffered  to  pillage  wherever  they  went.  They  had  contract- 
ed all  the  habits  of  banditti.  There  was  among  them  scarcely 
one  officer  capable  of  showing  them  their  duty.  Their  colonels 

*  Lewis.  Al>e' '.-'  reprimanded  Ayaux,  though  much  too  gently,  for  proposing 

Sept.  6, 

to  butcher  the  whole  Protestant  population  of  Leinster,Connaught,andMunster. 
"  Je  n'approuve  pas  Dependant  la  proposition  que  vous  faites  de  fairc  main  hasse 
sur  tous  les  Protestans  du  royaume,  du  moment  qu',  en  quelque  endroit  que  ce 
soit,  ils  se  seront  soulevez  :  et,  outre  que  la  punition  d'une  infinite  d'innocens 
pourpeude  counables  ne  seroit  pas  juste,  d'ailleurs  les  represailles  contre  les 
Oatholiques  seroient  d'autant  plus  dangereuses,  que  les  premiers  se  trouveront 
niieux  armez  et  soutenus  de  toutes  les  forces  d'Angleterre." 

t  Ronqnillo.  Aug.  9-19  speaking  of  the  Siege  of  Londonderry,  expresses  his 
astonishment  "que  una  plaza  sin  fortificazion  y  sin  gentes  de  guerra  aya  hecho 
vna  defensa  tan  gloriosa,  y  que  los  sHiadores  al  coutrario  ayan  sido  tan  pol' 
ti-oneB." 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  377 

were  generally  men  of  good  family,  but  men  who  had  never  seen 
service.  The  captains  were  butchers,  tailors,  shoemakers.  Hardly 
one  of  them  troubled  himself  about  the  comforts,  the  accoutre- 
ments, or  the  drilling  of  those  over  whom  he  was  placed.  The 
dragoons  were  little  better  than  the  infantry.  But  the  horse 
were,  with  some  exceptions,  excellent.  Almost  all  the  Irish 
gentlemen  who  had  any  military  experience  held  commissions  in 
the  cavalry  ;  and  by  the  exertions  of  these  officers,  some  regi- 
ments had  been  raised  and  disciplined  which  Avaux  pronounced 
equal  to  any  that  he  had  ever  seen.  It  was  therefore  evident 
that  the  inefficiency  of  the  foot  and  of  the  dragoons  was  to  be 
ascribed  to  the  vices,  not  of  the  Irish  character  but  of  the  Irish 
administration.* 

The  events  which  took  place  in  the  autumn  of  1 689  sufficient- 
ly proved  that  the  ill  fated  race,  which  enemies  and  allies  gene- 
rally agreed  in  regarding  with  unjust  contempt,  had,  together 
with  the  faults  inseparable  from  poverty,  ignorance,  and  super- 
stition, some  fine  qualities  which  have  not  always  been  found  in 
more  prosperous  and  more  enlightened  communities.  The-evil 
tidings  which  terrified  and  bewildered  James  stirred  the  whole 
population  of  the  southern  provinces  like  the  peal  of  a  trumpet 
sounding  to  battle.  That  Ulster  was  lost,  that  the  English  were 
coming,  that  the  death  grapple  between  the  two  hostile  nations 

»  This  account  of  the  Irish  army  is  compiled  from  numerous  letters  written  by 
Avaux  to  Lewis  and  to  Lewis's  ministers.  I  will  quote  a  few  of  the  most  remark- 
able passages.  "  Les  plus  beaux  hommes,"  Avaux  says  of  the  Irish,  "  qu'on 
peut  voir.  II  n'y  en  a  presque  point  au  clessous  de  cinq  pieds  cinq  a  six  pouces." 
It  will  be  remembered  that  the  French  foot  is  longer  than  ours.  "  Us  sont  tres 
bieii  faits  :  mais  ils  ne  sont  ny  disciplinez  ny  armez,  et  de  surplus  sent  de  grands 
voleurs."  "  La  plupart  de  ces  regimens  sont  levez  par  des  geiuilshommes  qui 
n'ont  jamais  est6  a  I'avm^e.  Ce  sont  des  taiileurs.  des  bouchers,  des  cordonniers, 
qui  ont  forme  les  compagnies  et  qui  en  sont  les  Capitaines."  "  Jamais  troupes 
n'ont  mareh6  comme  font  cellescy.  Ils  vont  oomme  des  bandits,  et  pillent  tout 
ce  qu'ils  trouvent  en  ehemin."  "Quoiqu'il  soil  vroi  que  les  soldats  paroissent 
fort  n'sol'.is  a  bien  faire,  et  qu'ils  soient  fort  animez  contre  les  rebelles,  ne'ant- 

moins  il  ne  suffit  pas  de  cela  pour  combattre Les  officiers  subalternes  sont 

mauvais,  et,  a  la  reserve  d'un  tres  petit  nombre,  il  n'y  en  a  point  qui  ayt  soin  des 
soldats,  des  annes,  et  de  la  discipline."  "  On  a  beaucoup  plus  de  confiance  en  la 
cavalerie.  dont  la  plus  grande  partie  est  assfz  bonne."  Avaux  mentions  several 
regiments  of  horse  with  particular  praise.  Of  two  of  these  he  says,  "  On  nepeut 
voir  de  meilleur  rtgiment."  The  correctness  of  the  opinion  which  he  had  formed 
both  of  the  infantry  and  of  the  cavalry  was,  after  his  departure  from  Ireland, 
sigually  proved  at  the  Buyiie. 


378  HISTORY   OP   ENGLAND. 

was  at  hand,  was  proclaimed  from  all  the  altars  of  three  and 
twenty  counties.  One  last  chance  was  left ;  and,  if  that  chance 
failed,  nothing  remained  but  the  despotic,  the  merciless,  rule  of 
the  Saxon  colony  and  of  the  heretical  church.  The  Roman 
Catholic  priest  who  had  just  taken  possession  of  the  glebe  house 
and  the  chancel,  the  Roman  Catholic  squire  who  had  just  been 
carried  back  on  the  shoulders  of  the  shouting  tenantry  into  the 
hall  of  his  fathers,  would  be  driven  forth  to  live  on  such  alms  as 
peasants,  themselves  oppressed  and  miserable,  could  spare.  A 
new  confiscation  would  complete  the  work  of  the  Act  of  Settle- 
ment ;  and  the  followers  of  William  would  seize  whatever  the 
followers  of  Cromwell  had  spared.  These  apprehensions  pro- 
duced such  an  outbreak  of  patriotic  and  religious  enthusiasm  as 
deferred  for  a  time  the  inevitable  day  of  subjugation.  Avaux 
was  amazed  by  the  energy  which,  in  circumstances  so  trying,  the 
Irish  displayed.  It  was  indeed  the  wild  and  unsteady  energy  of 
a  half  barbarous  people  :  it  was  transient :  it  was  often  misdirect- 
ed :  but  though  transient  and  misdirected,  it  did  wonders.  The 
French  Ambassador  was  forced  to  own  that  those  officers  of 
whose  incompetency  and  inactivity  he  had  so  often  complained 
had  suddenly  shaken  off  their  lethargy.  Recruits  came  in  by 
thousands.  The  ranks  which  had  been  thinned  under  the  walls 
of  Londonderry  were  soon  again  full  to  overflowing.  Great 
efforts  were  made  to  arm  and  clothe  the  troops  ;  and,  in  the  short 
space  of  a  fortnight,  everything  presented  a  new  and  cheering 
aspect.* 

The  Irish  required  of  the  King,  in  return  for  their  strenu- 
ous exertions  in  his  cause,  one  concession  which  was  by  no  means 
agreeable  to  him.  The  unpopularity  of  Melfort  had  become 
such  that  his  person  was  scarcely  safe.  He  had  no  friend  to 
spe/.k  a  word  in  his  favour.  The  French  hated  him.  In  every 
letter  which  arrived  at  Dublin  from  England  or  from  Scotland, 

*  I  will  quote  a  passage  or  two  from  the  despatches  written  at  this  time  by 
Avaux.  On  September  7-17,  he  says  :  "  De  quelque  cosl6  qu'on  se  tournat  on  ne 
pouvoit  rien  prevoir  que  de  desagreafole.  Mais  dans  cette  extremity  chacun  s'est 
(Svertue.  Les  officiers  out  fait  leurs  recrues  avec  beaneoup  de  diligence."  Three 
days  later  he  says  :  "  II  y  a  quinze  jours  que  nons  n'esperions  gnere  de  pouvoir 
mettre  les  choses  en  si  hori  estat :  mais  my  Lord  Tyrconnel  et  tons  lea  Irlandais 
ont  travailJe  avec  tant  d'empressement  qu'oii  s'est  mis  eu  estat  de  deilense." 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  379 

he  was  described  as  the  evil  genius  of  the  House  of  Stuart.  It 
was  necessary  for  his  own  sake  to  dismiss  him.  An  honourable 
pretext  was  found.  He  was  ordered  to  repair  to  Versailles,  to 
represent  there  the  state  of  affairs  in  Ireland,  and  to  implore  the 
French  government  to  send  over  without  delay  six  or  seven 
thousand  veteran  infantry.  He  laid  down  the  seals  ;  and  they 
were,  to  the  great  delight  of  the  Irish,  put  into  the  hands  of  an 
Irishman,  Sir  Richard  Nagle,  who  had  made  himself  conspicuous 
as  Attorney  General  and  speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons. 
Mel  fort  took  his  departure  under  cover  of  the  night :  for  the 
rage  of  the  populace  against  him  was  such  that  he  could  not  with- 
out danger  show  himself  in  the  streets  of  Dublin  by  day.  On 
the  following  morning  James  left  his  capital  in  the  opposite 
direction  to  encounter  Schomberg.* 

Schomberg  had  landed  in  the  north  of  Ulster.  The  force 
which  he  had  brought  with  him  did  not  exceed  ten  thousand  men. 
But  he  expected  to  be  joined  by  the  armed  colonists  and  by  the 
regiments  which  were  under  Kirke.'s  command.  The  coffeehouse 

•  ™ 

politicians  of  London  fully  expected  that  such  a  general  with 
such  an  army  would  speedily  reconquer  the  island.  Unhappily 
it  soon  appeared  that  the  means  which  had  been  furnished  to  him 
were  altogether  inadequate  to  the  work  which  he  had  to  per- 
form :  of  the  greater  part  of  these  means  he  was  speedily  deprived 
by  a  succession  of  unforeseen  calamities  ;  and  the  whole  cam- 
paign was  merely  a  long  struggle  maintained  by  his  prudence 
and  resolution  against  the  utmost  spite  of  fortune. 

He  marched  first  to  Carrickfergus.  That  town  was  held 
for  James  by  two  regiments  of  infantry.  Schomberg  battered 
the  walls  ;  and  the  Irish,  after  holding  out  a  week,  capitulated. 
He  promised  that  they  should  depart  unharmed ;  but  he  found 
it  no  easy  matter  to  keep  his  word.  The  people  of  the  town 
and  neighbourhood  were  generally  Protestants  of  Scottish  extrac- 
tion. They  had  suffered  mnch  during  the  short  ascendency  of 
the  native  race  ;  and  what  they  had  suffered  they  were  now 

*  Avaux,  Aug.  20-30'  *u?~-  t^^r-J  Li^  of  James,  ii.,373  ;  Melfort's  vindi- 
Sept.  -1.    ?ept.  5, 

ration  of  himself  amonj  the  Xairrie  Papers.  Ayaux  says  :  "II  ponrra  pnrtlr  oe 
Foir  a  la  nuit :  oar  je  vote  bieu  qu'il  apprehende  qu'il  ne  sera  pas  sur  oour  luy  do 
part  ir  en  plein  jour." 


380  kflSTORT  OF  ENGLAND. 

eager  to  retaliate.  They  assembled  in  great  multitudes,  ex- 
claiming that  the  capitulation  was  nothing  to  them,  and  that 
they  would  be  revenged.  They  soon  proceeded  from  words  to 
blows.  The  Irish  disarmed,  stripped,  and  hustled,  clung  for 
protection  to  the  English  officers  and  soldiers.  Schomberg  with 
difficulty  prevented  a  massacre  by  spurring,  pistol  in  hand, 
through  the  throng  of  enraged  colonists.* 

From  Carrickfergus  Schomberg  proceeded  to  Lisburn,  and 
thence,  through  towns  left  without  an  inhabitant,  and  over 
plains  on  which  not  a  cow,  nor  a  sheep,  nor  a  stack  of  corn  was 
to  be  seen,  to  Loughbrickland.  Here  he  was  joined  by  three 
regiments  of  Enniskilleners,  whose  dress,  horses,  and  arms  looked 
strange  to  eyes  accustomed  to  the  pomp  of  reviews,  but  who  in 
natural  courage  were  inferior  to  no  troops  in  the  world,  and 
who  had,  during  months  of  constant  watching  and  skirmishing, 
acquired  many  of  the  essential  qualities  of  soldiers.f 

Schomberg  continued  to  advance  towards  Dublin  through  a 
desert.  The  few  Irish  troops  which  remained  in  the  south  of 
Ulster  retreated  before  him,  destroying  as  they  retreated. 
Newry,  once  a  well  built  and  thriving  Protestant  borough,  he 
found  a  heap  of  smoking  ashes.  Carlingford  too  had  perished. 
The  spot  where  the  town  had  once  stood  was  marked  only  by 
the  massy  remains  of  the  old  Norman  castle.  Those  who  ven- 
tured to  wander  from  the  camp  reported  that  the  country,  as  far 
as  they  could  explore  it,  was  a  wilderness.  There  were  cabins, 
but  no  inmates  :  there  was  rich,  pasture,  but  neither  flock  nor 
herd  :  there  were  cornfields  :  but  the  harvest  lay  on  the  ground 
soaked  with  rain.J 

While  Schomberg  was  advancing  through  a  vast  solitude, 
the  Irish  forces  were  rapidly  assembling  from  every  quarter. 
On  the  tenth  of  September  the  royal  standard  of  James  was  un- 
furled on  the  tower  of  Drogheda ;  and  beneath  it  were  soon 
collected  twenty  thousand  fighting  men,  the  infantry  generally 
bad,  the  cavalry  generally  good,  but  both  infantry  and  cavalry 

*  Story's  Impartial  History  of  the  Wars  of  Ireland,  1693  ;  Life  of  James,  ii. 
374  ;  Avaux,  Sept.  7-17,  1689  ;  Nihell's  Journal,  printed  in  1689,  aiid  reprinted  by 
Macpherson. 

t  Story's  Impartial  History.  t  Ibid. 


WILLIAM   AND   THARY.  381 

full  of  zeal  for  their  country  and  their  religion.*  The  troops 
were  attended  as  usual  by  a  great  multitude  of  camp  followers, 
armed  with  scythes,  half  pikes,  and  skeans.  By  this  time  Schom- 
berg.  had  reached  Dundalk.  The  distance  between  the  two 
armies  was  not  more  than  a  long  day's  march.  It  was  therefore 
generally  expected  that  the  fate  of  the  island  would  speedily  be 
decided  by  a  pitched  battte. 

Jn  both  camps,  all  who  did  not  understand  war  were  eager 
to  fight ;  and,  in  both  camps,  the  few  who  had  a  high  reputa- 
tion for  military  science  were  against  fighting.  Neither  Rosen 
nor  Schomberg  wished  to  put  everything  on  a  cast.  Each  of 
them  knew  intimately  the  defects  of  his  own  army ;  and  neither 
of  them  was  fully  aware  of  the  defects  of  the  other's  army. 
Rosen  was  certain  that  the  Irish  infantry  were  worse  equipped, 
worse  officered,  and  worse  drilled,  than  any  infantry  that  he 
had  ever  seen  from  the  Gulf  of  Bothnia  to  the  Atlantic  ;  and 
he  supposed  that  the  English  troops  were  well  trained,  and 
were,  as  they  doubtless  ought  to  have  been,  amply  provided 
with  everything  necessary  to  their  efficiency.  Numbers,  he 
rightly  judged,  would  avail  little  against  a  great  superiority  of 
arms  and  discipline.  He  therefore  advised  James  to  fall  back, 
and  even  to  abandon  Dublin  to  the  enemy  rather  than  hazard  a 
buttle  the  loss  of  which  would  be  the  loss  of  all.  Athlone  was 
the  best  place  in  the  kingdom  for  a  determined  stand.  The 
passage  of  the  Shannon  might  be  defended  till  the  succours  which 
Melfort  had  been  charged  to  solicit  came  from  France  ;  and 
those  succours  would  change  the  whole  character  of  the  war. 
But  the  Irish,  with  Tyrconnel  at  their  head,  were  unanimous 
against  retreating.  The  blood  of  the  whole  nation  was  up. 
James  was  pleased  with  the  enthusiasm  of  his  subjects,  and  pos- 
itively declared  that  he  would  not  disgrace  himself  by  leaving 
his  capital  to  the  invaders  without  a  blow.f 

In  a  few  days  it  became  clear  that  Schomberg  had  deter- 
mined not  to  fight.  His  reasons  were  weighty.  He  had 

*  Avaux.  Sept.  10-20, 1689 ;  Story's  Impartial  History  ;  Life  of  James,  ii.  377, 
378,  Orig.  Mem.  Story  and  James  agree  in  estimating  the  Irish  army  at  about 
twenty  thousand  men.  See  also  Dangeau,  Oct.  28,  1689. 

t  Life  of  James,  ii.  377,  378,  Orig.  kern. 


382  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

V'V 

some  good  Dutch  and  French  troops.  The  Enniskilleners  who 
had  joined  him  had  served  a  military  apprenticeship,  though 
not  in  a  very  regular  manner.  But  the  bulk  of  his  army  con- 
sisted of  English  peasants  who  had  just  left  their  cottages.  His 
musketeers  had  still  to  learn  how  to  load  their  pieces ;  his  dra- 
goons had  still  to  learn  how  to  manage  their  horses ;  and  these  - 
inexperienced  recruits  were  for  the  most  part  commanded  by 
officers  as  inexperienced  as  themselves.  His  troops  were  there- 
fore not  generally  superior  in  discipline  to  the  Irish,  and  were 
in  number  far  inferior.  Nay,  he  found  that  his  men  were  al- 
most as  ill  armed,  as  ill  lodged,  and  as  ill  clad,  as  the  Celts  to 
whom  they  were  opposed.  The  wealth  of  fhe  English  nation 
and  the  liberal  votes  of  the  English  parliament  had  entitled 
him  to  expect  that  he  should  be  abundantly  supplied  with  all 
the  munitions  of  war.  But  he  was  cruelly  disappointed.  The 
administration  had,  ever  since  the  death  of  Oliver,  been  con- 
stantly becoming  more  and  more  imbecile,  more  and  more  cor- 
rupt ;  and  now  the  Revolution  reaped  what  the  Restoration 
had  sown.  A  crowd  of  negligent  or  ravenous  functionaries, 
formed  under  Charles  and  James,  plundered,  starved,  and  poi- 
soned the  armies  and  fleets  of  William.  Of  these  men  the 
most  important  was  Henry  Shales,  who,  in  the  late  reign,  had 
been  Commissary  General  to  the  camp  at  Hounslow.  It  is 
difficult  to  blame  the  new  government  for  continuing  to  employ 
him :  for,  in  his  own  department,  his  experience  far  surpassed 
that  of  any  other  Englishman.  Unfortunately,  in  the  same 
school  in  which  he  had  acquired  his  experience,  he  had  learned 
the  whole  art  of  peculation.  The  beef  and  brandy  which  he 
furnished  were  so  bad  that  the  soldiers  turned  from  them  with 
loathing  :  the  tents  were  rotten  :  the  clothing  was  scanty  ;  the 
muskets  broke  in  the  handling.  Great  numbers  of  shoes  were 
set  down  to  the  account  of  the  government :  but,  two  months 
after  the  Treasury  had  paid  the  bill,  the  shoes  had  not  arrived  in 
Ireland.  The  means  of  transporting  baggage  and  artillery  were 
almost  entirely  wanting.  An  ample  number  of  horses  had 
been  purchased  in  England  with  the  public  money,  and  had 
been  sent  to  the  bunks  of  the  Pee.  But  Shales  had  let  them 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  383 

out  for  harvest  work  to  the  farmers  of  Cheshire,  had  pocketed 
the  hire,  and  had  left  the  troops  in  Ulster  to  get  on  as  they 
best  might.*  Schomberg  thought  that,  if  he  should,  with  an 
ill  trained  and  ill  appointed  army,  risk  a  battle  against  a  superior 
force,  he  might  not  improbably  be  defeated  ;  and  he  knew  that 
a  defeat  might  be  followed  by  the  loss  of  one  kingdom,  perhaps 
by  the  loss  of  three  kingdoms.  He  therefore  made  up  his  mind 
to  stand  on  the  defensive  till  his  men  had  been  disciplined,  and 
till  reinforcements  and  supplies  should  arrive. 

Pie  entrenched  himself  near  Dundalk  in  such  a  manner  that 
he  could  not  be  forced  to  fight  against  his  will.  James,  em- 
boldened by  the  caution  of  his  adversary,  and  disregarding  the 
advice  of  Rosen  advanced  to  Ardee,  appeared  at  the  head  of  the 
whole  Irish  army  before  the  English  lines,drew  up  horse,foot,and 
artillery,  in  order  of  battle,and  displayed  his  banner.  The  English 
were  impatient  to  fall  on.  But  their  general  had  made  up  his  mind 
and  was  not  to  be  moved  by  the  bravadoes  of  the  enemy  or  by 
the  murmurs  of  his  own  soldiers.  During  some  weeks  he  re- 
mained secure  within  his  defences,  while  the  Irish  lay  a  few 
miles  off.  He  set  himself  assiduously  to  drill  those  new  levies 
which  formed  the  greater  part  of  his  army.  He  ordered  the 
musketeers  to  be  constantly  exercised  in  firing,  sometimes  at 
marks,  and  sometimes  by  platoons  ;  and,  from  the  way  in  which 
they  at  first  acquitted  themselves,  it  plainly  appeared  that  he 
had  judged  wisely  in  not  leading  them  out  to  battle.  It  was 
found  that  not  one  in  four  of  the  English  soldiers  could  manage 
his  piece  at  all ;  and  whoever  succeeded  in  discharging  it,  no 
matter  in  what  direction,  thought  that  he  had  performed  a 
great  feat. 

While  the  Duke  was  thus  employed,  the  Irish  eyed  his 
camp  without  daring  to  attack  it.  But  within  that  camp  soon 
appeared  two  evils  more  terrible  than  the  foe,  treason  and  pesti- 
lence. Among  the  best  troops  under  his  command  were  the 
French  exiles.  And  now  a  grave  doubt  arose  touching  their 
fidelity.  The  real  Huguenot  refugee -indeed  might  safely  be 

»  See  Grey's  Debates,  'Nov.  26,  27,  28. 1689,  and  the  Dialogue  between  a 
Lieutenant  and  one  of  his  Deputies,  1G92. 


384  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

trusted.  The  dislike  with  which  the  most  zealous  English 
Protestant  regarded  the  House  of  Bourbon  and  the  Church  of 
Rome  was  a  lukewarm  feeling  when  compared  with  that  inex- 
tinguishable hatred  which  glowed  in  the  bosom  of  the  persecu- 
ted, dragooned,  expatriated  Calvin'st  of  Languedoc.  The  Irish 
had  already  remarked  that  the  French  heretic  neither  gave  nor 
took  quarter.*  Now,  however,  it  was  found  that  with  those 
emigrants  who  had  sacrificed  everything  for  the  reformed  religion 
were  intermingled  emigrants  of  a  very  different  sort,  deserters 
who  had  run  away  from  their  standards  in  the  Low  Countries,  and 
had  coloured  their  crime  by  pretending  that  they  were  Protes- 
tants, and  that  their  conscience  would  not  suffer  them  to  fight 
for  the  persecutor  of  their  Church.  Some  of  these  men,  hoping 
that  by  a  second  treason  they  might  obtain  both  pardon  and  re- 
ward, opened  a  correspondence  with  Avaux.  The  letters  were 
intercepted  ;  and  a  formidable  plot  was  brought  to  light.  It 
appeared  that,  if  Schomberg  had  been  weak  enough  to  yield  to 
the  importunity  of  those  who  wished  him  to  give  battle,  several 
French  companies  would,  in  the  heat  of  the  action,  have  fired 
on  the  English,  and  gone  over  to  the  enemy.  Such  a  defection 
might  well  have  produced  a  general  panic  in  a  better  army  than 
that  which  was  encamped  under  Dundalk.  It  was  necessary  to 
be  severe.  Six  of  the  conspirators  were  hanged.  Two  hundred 
of  their  accomplices  were  sent  in  irons  to  England.  Even 
after  this  winnxnving,  the  refugees  were  long  regarded  by  the 
rest  of  the  army  with  unjust  but  not  unnatural  suspicion.  Dur- 
ing some  days  indeed  there  was  great  reason  to  fear  that  the 
enemy  would  be  entertained  with  a  bloody  fight  between  the 
English  soldiers  and  their  French  allies,  f 

A  few  hours  before  the  execution  of  the  chief  conspirators, 
a  general  muster  of  the  army  was  held  ;  and  it  was  observed 

«  Nihell's  Journal.  A  French  officer,  in  a  letter  to  Avaux,  written  soon  after 
Schomberg'  landing,  eays,  "  Le.s  Huguenots  font  plus  de  mal  que  lea  Anglois,  et 
tuent  force  Catholiques  pour  avoir  fait  resistance." 

t  Story  ;  Narrative  transmitted  by  Avaux  to  Seignelay,  ^  6  -'  1689  ;  London 
<3a70tto,  Oct.  14,  1081.  Tt  is  curious  that,  though  Pumont  was  in  the  camp 
before  Dundalk,  there  is  in  his  MS.  no  mention  of  the  conspiracy  among  the 
French. 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  385 

that  the  ranks  of  the  English  battalions  looked  thin.  From  the 
first  day  of  tho  campaign,  there  had  been  much  sickness  among 
the  recruits  :  but  it  was  not  till  the  time  of  the  equinox  that 
the  mortality  became  alarming.  The  autumnal  rains  of  Ireland 
are  usually  heavy  ;  and  this  year  they  were  heavier  than  usual. 
The  whole  country  was  deluged  ;  and  the  Duke's  camp  became 
a  marsh.  The  Euniskillen  men  were  seasoned  to  the  climate. 
The  Dutch  were  accustomed  to  live  in  a  country  which,  as  a  wit 
of  that  age  said,  draws  fifty  feet  of  water.  They  kept  their  huts 
dry  and  clean ;  and  they  had  experienced  and  careful  officers 
who  did  not  suffer  them  to  omit  any  precaution.  But  the 
peasants  of  Yorkshire  and  Derbyshire  had  neither  constitutions 
prepared  to  resist  the  pernicious  influence,  nor  skill  to  protect 
themselves  against  it.  The  bad  provisions  furnished  by  the 
Commissariat  aggravated  the  maladies  generated  by  the  air. 
Remedies  were  almost  entirely  wanting.  The  surgeons  were 
few.  The  medicine  chest  contained  little  more  than  lint  and 
plasters  for  wounds.  The  English  sickened  and  died  by  hundreds. 
Even  those  who  were  not  smitten  bj  the  pestilence  were  un- 
nerved and  dejected,  and,  instead  of  putting  forth  the  energy 
which  is  the  heritage  of  our  race,  awaited  their  fate  with  the 
helpless  apathy  of  Asiatics.  It  was  in  vain  that  Schomberg 
tried  to  teach  them  to  improve  their  habitations,  and  to  cover 
the  wet  earth  with  a  thick  carpet  of  fern.  Exertion  had  become 
more  dreadful  to  them  than  death.  It  was  not  to  be  expected 
that  men  who  would  not  help  themselves  should  help  each  other. 
Nobody  asked  and  nobody  showed  compassion.  Familiarity  with 
ghastly  spectacles  produced  a  hardheartedness  and  a  desperate 
impiety  of  which  an  example  will  not  easily  be  found  even  in 
the  history  of  infectious  diseases.  The  moans  of  the  sick  were 
drowned  by  the  blasphemy  and  ribaldry  of  their  comrades. 
Sometimes,  seated  on  the  body  of  a  wretch  who  had  died  in  the 
•morning,  might  be  seen  a  wretch  destined  to  die  before  night, 
cursing,  singing  loose  songs,  and  swallowing  usquebaugh  to  the 
health  of  the  devil.  AY  hen  the  corpses  were  taken  away  to  be 
buried  the  survivors  grumbled.  A  dead  man,  they  said,  was  a 
good  screen  and  a  good  stool.  Why,  when  there  was  so  abuud- 
VOL.  III.— 25 


386  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

ant  a  supply  of  such  useful  articles  of  furniture,  were  people  to 
be  exposed  to  the  cold  air  and  forced  to  crouch  on  the  moist 
ground.* 

Many  of  the  sick  were  sent  by  the  English  vessels  which  lay 
off  the  coast  to  Belfast,  where  a  great  hospital  had  been  prepared. 
But  scarce  half  of  them  lived  to  the  end  of  the  voyage.  More 
than  one  ship  lay  long  in  the  bay  of  Carrickfergus,  heaped  with 
carcasses,  and  exhaling  the  stench  of  death,  without  a  living 
man  on  board.f 

The  Irish  army  suffered  much  less.  The  kerne  of  Munster 
or  Connaught  was  quite  as  well  off  in  the  camp  as  if  he  had  been 
in  his  own  mud  cabin  inhaling  the  vapours  of  his  own  quagmire. 
He  naturally  exulted  in  the  distress  of  the  Saxon  heretics,  and 
flattered  himself  that  they  would  be  destroyed  without  a  blow. 
He  heard  with  delight  the  guns  pealing  all  day  over  the  graves 
of  the  English  officers,  till  at  length  the  funerals  became  too 
numerous  to  be  celebrated  with  military  pomp,  and  the  mournful 
sounds  were  succeeded  by  a  silence  more  mournful  still. 

The  superiority  of  force  was  now  so  decidedly  on  the  side  of 
James  that  he  could  safely  venture  to  detach  five  regiments  from 
his  army,  and  to  send  them  into  Connaught.  Sarsfield  com- 
manded them.  He  did  not,  indeed,  stand  so  high  as  he  deserved 
in  the  royal  estimation.  The  King,  with  an  air  of  intellectual 
superiority  which  must  have  made  Avaux  and  Rosen  bite  their 
lips,  pronounced  him  a  brave  fellow,  but  very  scantily  supplied 
with  brains.  It  was  not  without  great  difficulty  that  the  Am- 
bassador prevailed  on  His  Majesty  to  raise  the  best  officer  in  the 
Irish  army  to  the  rank  of  Brigadier.  Sarsfield  now  fully  vin- 
dicated the  favourable  opinion  which  his  French  patrons  had 
formed  of  him.  He  dislodged  the  English  from  Sligo  ;  and  he 
effectually  secured  Galway,  which  had  been  in  considerable 
danger.^ 

*  Story's  Impartial  History  ;  Dumont  MS.  The  profaneness  and  dissolute- 
ness of  the  camp  during  the  sickness  are  mentioned  in  many  contemporary  pam- 
phlets both  in  verse  and  prose.  See  particularly  a  Satire  entitled  Iteforniation 
of  Manners,  part  ii.  . 

t  Story's  Impartial  History. 

t  Avaux,  Oct.  11-21,  Nov.  14-24,1689;  Story's  Impartial  History;  Life  of 
Jatnes,  ii.  382,  383,  Orig.  Mem. ;  Kiliell's  Journal. 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  387 

No  attack,  however,  was  made  on  the  English  entrenchments 
before  Dundalk.  In  the  midst  of  difficulties  and  disasters  hourly 
multiplying,  the  great  qualities  of  Schomberg  appeared  hourly 
more  and  more  conspicuous.  Is  ot  in  the  full  tide  of  success,  not 
on-  the  field  of  Monies  Claros,  not  under  the  walls  of  Maestricht, 
had  he  so  well  deserved  the  admiration  of  mankind.  His 
resolution  never  gave  way.  His  prudence  never  slept.  His 
temper,  in  spite  of  manifold  vexations  and  provocations,  was 
always  cheerful  and  serene.  The  effective  men  under  his  com- 
mand, even  if  all  were  reckoned  as  effective  who  were  not 
stretched  on  the  earth  by  fever,  did  not  now  exceed  five  thousand. 
These  were  hardly  equal  to  their  ordinary  duty  ;  and  yet  it  was 
necessary  to  harass  them  with  double  duty.  Nevertheless  so 
masterly  were  the  old  man's  dispositions  that  with  this  small 
force  he  faced  during  several  weeks  twenty  thousand  troops  who 
were  accompanied  by  a  multitude  of  armed  banditti.  At  length 
early  in  November  the  Irish  dispersed,  and  went  to  winter 
quarters.  The  Duke  then  broke  up  his  camp  and  retired  into 
Ulster.  Just  as  the  Remains  of  his  army  were  about  to  move,  a 
rumour  spread  that  the  enemy  was  approaching  in  great  force. 
Had  this  rumour  been  true,  the  danger  would  have  been  extreme. 
But  the  English  regiments,  though  they  had  been  reduced  to  a 
third  part  of  their  complement,  and  though  the  men  who  were 
in  best  health  were  hardly  able  to  shoulder  arms,  showed  a 
strange  joy  and  alacrity  at  the  prospect  of  battle,  and  swore  that 
the  Papists  should  pay  for  all  the  misery  of  the  last  month. 
"  We  English,"  Schomberg  said,  identifying  himself  good- 
humouredly  with  the  people  of  the  country  which  had  adopted 
him,  "  we  English  have  stomach  enougli  for  fighting.  It  is  a 
pity,  that  we  are  not  as  fond  of  some  other  parts  of  a  soldier's 
business." 

The  alarm  proved  false.  The  Duke's  army  departed  un- 
molested :  but  the  highway  along  which  he  retired  presented  a 
piteous  and  hideous  spectacle.  A  long  train  of  waggons  laden 
with  the  sick  jolted  over  the  rugged  pavement.  At  every  jolt 
some  wretched  man  gave  up  the  ghost.  The  corpse  was  flung 
out  and  left  unburied  to  the  foxes  and  crows.  The  whole  uuna- 


388  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

ber  of  those  who  died,  in  the  camp  at  Dundalk,  in  the  hospital 
at  Belfast,  on  the  road,  and  on  the  sea,  amounted  to  above  six 
thousand.  The  survivors  were  quartered  for  the  winter  in  the 
towns  and  villages  of  Ulster.  The  general  fixed  his  head  quar- 
ters at  Lisburn.* 

His  conduct  was  variously  judged.  Wise  and  candid  men 
said  that  he  had  surpassed  himself,  and  that  there  was  no  other 
captain  in  Europe  who,  with  raw  troops,  with  ignorant  officers, 
with  scanty  stores,  having  to  contend  at  once  against  a  hostile 
army  of  greatly  superior  force,  against  a  villanous  commissariat, 
against  a  nest  of  traitors  in  his  own  camp,  and  against  a  disease 
more  murderous  than  the  sword,  would  have  brought  the  cam- 
paign to  a  close  without  the  loss  of  a  flag  or  a  gun.  On  the  other 
hand,  many  of  those  newly  commissioned  majors  and  captains, 
whose  helplessness  had  increased  all  his  perplexities,  and  who  had 
not  one  qualification  for  their  post  except  personal  courage, 
grumbled  at  the  skill  and  patience  which  had  saved  them  from 
destruction.  Their  complaints  were  echoed  on  the  other  side  of 
Saint  George's  Channel.  Some  of  the  murmuring,  though 
unjust,  was  excusable.  The  parents,  who  had  sent  a  gallant  lad, 
in  his  first  uniform,  to  fight  his  way  to  glory,  might  be  pardoned 
if,  when  they  learned  that  he  had  died  on  a  wisp  of  straw  without 
medical  attendance,  and  had  been  buried  in  a  swamp  without 
any  Christian  or  military  ceremony,  their  affliction  made  them 
hasty  and  unreasonable.  But  with  the  cry  of  bereaved  families 
was  mingled  another  cry  much  less  respectable.  All  the  hearers 
and  tellers  of  news  abused  the  general  who  furnished  them  with 
so  little  news  to  hear  and  to  tell.  For  men  of  that  sort  are  so 
greedy  after  excitement  that  they  far  more  readily  forgive  a 
commander  who  loses  a  battle  than  a  commander  who  declines 
one.  The  politicians  who  delivered  their  oracles  from  the  thick- 

*  Story's  Impartial  History  ;  Schomberg's  Despatches;  NihelPs  Journal,  and 
James's  Life;  Burnet,  ii.  '2',) ;  Dangeau's  journal  during  this  autumn  ;  the  Nar- 
rative sent  by  Avaux  to  Seignelay,  and  the  Dumout  MS.  The  lying  of  the  Lon- 
don Gazette  is  monstrous.  Through  the  whole  autumn  the  troo;>s  are  constantly 
said  to  be  in  good  condition.  In  the  absurd  d:'ama  entitled  the  Royal  Voyage, 
which  was  acted  for  the  amusement  of  the  rabble  of  London  in  1689,  the  Irish  are 
represented  as  attacking  some  of  the  sick  English.  The  English  put  thfe  assail- 
ants to  the  rout,  and  theu  drop  dowu  dead. 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  389 

est  cloud  of  tobacco  smoke  at  Garroway's,  confidently  asked,  with- 
out knowing  anything,  either  of  war  in  general,  or  o£  Irish  war 
in  particular,  why  Schomberg  did  not  light.  They  could  not 
venture  to  say  that  he  did  not  understand  his  calling.  He  had, 
in  his  day,  they  acknowledged,  been  an  excellent  officer  :  but  he 
was  very  old.  He  seemed  to  bear  his  years  well :  but  his  facul- 
ties were  not  what  they  had  been  :  his  memory  was  failing  ; 
and  it  was  well  known  that  he  sometimes  forgot  in  the  afternoon 
what  he  had  done  in  the  morning.  It  may  be  doubted  whether 
there  ever  existed  a  human  being  whose  mind  was  quite  as  firmly 
toned  at  eighty  as  at  forty.  But  that  Schomberg's  intellectual 
powers  had  been  little  impaired  by  years  is  sufficiently  proved 
by  his  despatches,  which  are  still  extant,  and  which  are  models 
of  official  writing,  terse,  perspicuous,  full  of  important  facts  and 
weighty  reasons,  compressed  into  the  smallest  possible  number 
of  words.  In  those  despatches  he  sometimes  alluded,  not 
angrily,  but  with  calm  disdain,  to  the  censures  thrown  upon  his 
conduct  by  shallow  babblers,  who,  never  having  seen  any  mili- 
tary operation  more  important  than  the  relieving  of  the  guard 
at  Whitehall,  imagined  that  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  was 
to  gain  great  victories  in  any  situation  and  against  any  odds, 
and  by  sturdy  patriots  who  were  convinced  that  one  English 
carter  or  thresher,  who  had  not  yet  learned  how  to  load  a  gun 
or  port  a  pike,  was  a  match  for  any  six  musketeers  of  King 
Lewis's  household.* 

Unsatisfactory  as  had  been  the  results  of  the  campaign  in 
Ireland,  the  results  of  the  maritime  operations  of  the  year  were 
more  unsatisfactory  still.  It  had  been  confidently  expected 
that,  on  the  sea,  England,  allied  with  Holland,  would  have  been 
far  more  than  a  match  for  the  power  of  Lewis :  but  everything 
went  wrong.  Herbert  had,  after  the  unimportant  skirmish  of 
Bantry  Bay,  returned  with  his  squadron  to  Portsmouth.  There 
he  found  that  he  had  not  lost  the  good  opinion  either  of  the 
public  or  of  the  government.  The  House  of  Commons  thanked 
him  for  his  services  ;  and  he  received  s'gnal  marks  of  the  favor  of 
the  Crown.  He  had  not  been  at  the  coronation,  and  had  there- 

«  See  his  despatches  in  the  Appendix  to  Dalrymple's  Memoirs. 


390  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

fore  missed  his  share  of  the  rewards  which,  at  the  time  of  that 
solemnity,  had  been  distributed  among  the  chief  agents  in  the 
Revolution.  The  omission  was  now  repaired ;  and  he  was 
created  Earl  of  Torrington.  The  King  went  down  to  Ports- 
mouth, dined  on  board  of  the  Admiral's  flag  ship,  expressed  the 
fullest  confidence  in  the  valour  and  loyalty  of  the  navy,  knighted 
two  gallant  captains,  Cloudesley  Shovel  and  John  Ashby,  and 
ordered  a  donative  to  be  divided  among  the  seamen.* 

We  cannot  justly  blame  William  for  having  a  high  opinion 
of  Torrington.  For  Torrington  was  generally  regarded  as  one 
of  the  bravest  and  most  skilful  officers  in  the  navy.  He  had 
been  promoted  to  the  rank  of  Rear  Admiral  of  England  by  James 
who,  if  he  understood  anything, 'understood  maritime  affairs. 
That  place  and  other  lucrative  places  Torrington  had  relin- 
quished when  he  found  that  he  could  retain  them  only  by  sub- 
mitting to  be  a  tool  of  the  Jesuitical  cabal.  No  man  had  taken 
a  more  active,  a  more  hazardous,  or  a  more  useful  part  in  effect- 
ing the  Revolution.  It  seemed,  therefore,  that  no  man  had 
fairer  pretensions  to  be  put  at  the  head  of  the  naval  adminis- 
tration. Yet  no  man  could  be  more  unfit  for  such  a  post. 
His  morals  had  always  been  loose,  so  loose  indeed  that  the 
firmness  with  which  in  the  late  reign  he  had  adhered  to  his 
religion  had  excited  much  surprise.  His  glorious  disgrace 
indeed  seemed  to  have  produced  a  salutary  effect  on  his  charac- 
ter. In  poverty  and  exile  he  rose  from  a  voluptuary  into  a 
hero.  But,  as  soon  as  prosperity  returned,  the  hero  sank  again 
into  a  voluptuary ;  and  the  relapse  was  deep  and  hopeless. 
The  nerves  of  his  mind,  which  had  been  during  a  short  time 
braced  to  a  high  tone,  were  now  so  much  relaxed  by  vice  that 
he  was  utterly  incapable  of  selfdenial  or  of  strenuous  exertion. 
The  vulgar  counge  of  a  foremast  man  he  still  retained.  But 
both  as  Admira?  and  as  First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty  he  was 
utterly  inefficient  Month  after  month  the  fleet  which  should 
have  been  the  terror  of  the  seas  lay  in  harbour  while  he  was 
diverting  himself  in  London.  The  sailors,  punning  upon  his 
new  title,  ga'^  '<im  the  name  of  Lord  Tarry -in-Town.  When 

*  London  Gazette,  May  20,  1689. 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  391 

he  came  on  shipboard  he  was  accompanied  by  a  bevy  of  Cour- 
tesans. There  was  scarcely  an  hour  of  the  day  or  of  the  night 
when  he  was  not  under  the  influence  of  claret.  Being  insatiable 
of  pleasure,  he  necessarily  became  insatiable  of  wealth.  Yet 
he  loved  flattery  almost  as  much  as  either  wealth  or  pleasure. 
He  had  long  been  in  the  habit  of  exacting  the  most  abject 
homage  from  those  who  were  under  his  command.  His  flag 

o  o 

ship  was  a  little  Versailles.  He  expected  his  captains  to  attend 
him  to  his  cabin  when  he  went  to  bed,  and  to  assemble  every 
morning  at  his  levee.  Pie  even  suffered  them  to  dress  him. 
One  of  them  combed  his  flowing  wig  ;  another  stood  ready  with 
the  embroidered  coat.  Under  such  a  chief  there  could  be  no 
discipline.  His  tars  passed  their  time  in  rioting  among  the  rab- 
ble of  Portsmouth.  Those  officers  who  had  won  his  favour  by 
servility  and  adulation  easily  obtained  leave  of  absence,  and 
spent  weeks  in  London,  revelling  in  taverns,  scouring  the  streets, 
or  making  love  to  the  masked  ladies  in  the  pit  of  the  theatre. 
The  victuallers  soon  found  out  with  whom  they  had  to  deal, 
and  sent  down  to  the  fleet  casks  of  meat  which  dogs  would  not 
touch,  and  barrels  of  beer  which  smelt  worse  than  bilge  water. 
Meanwhile  the  British  Channel  seemed  to  be  abandoned  to 
French  rovers.  Our  merchantmen  were  boarded  in  sight  of  the 
ramparts  of  Plymouth.  The  sugar  fleet  from  the  West  Indies 
lost  seven  ships.  The  whole  value  of  the  prizes  taken  by  the 
cruisers  of  the  enemy  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  our 
island,  while  Torrington  was  engaged  with  his  bottle  and  his 
harem,  was  estimated  at  six  hundred  thousand  pounds.  So 
difficult  was  it  to  obtain  the  convoy  of  a  man  of  war,  except  by 
giving  immense  bribes,  that  our  traders  were  forced  to  hire 
the  services  of  Dutch  privateers,  and  found  these  foreign  merce- 
naries much  more  useful  and  much  less  greedy  than  the  officers 
of  our  own  royal  navy.* 

The  only  department  with  which  no  fault  could  be  found 
was   the   department  of  Foreign  Affairs.     There  William  was 

*  Commons'  Journals,  Nov.  13,  23,  1689 ;  Grey's  Debates,  Nov.  13,  14,  18,  23, 
1689.  Sec  among  numerous  pasquinades,  the  Parable  of  the  Bearbaiting,  Refor- 
mation of  Manners,  a  Satire,  the  Mock  Mourners,  a  Satire.  See  also  Pepys'8 
Diary  kept  at  Tangier,  Oct.  15, 1683. 


392  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

iiis  own  minister ;  and,  where  he  was  his  own  minister,  there 
were  no  delays,  no  blunders,  no  jobs,  no  treasons.  The  diffi- 
culties with  which  he  had  to  contend  were  indeed  great.'  JEven 
at  the  Hague  he  had  to  encounter  an  opposition  which  all  his 
wisdom  and  firmness  could,  with  the  strenuous  support  of 
Heinsius,  scarcely  overcome.  The  English  were  not  aware 
that,  while  they  were  murmuring  at  their  Sovereign's  partiality 
for  the  land  of  his  birth,  a  strong  party  in  Holland  was  murmur- 
ing at  his  partiality  for  the  land  of  his  adoption.  The  Dutch 
ambassadors  at  Westminster  complained  that  the  terms  of 
alliance  which  he  proposed  were  derogatory  to  the  dignity  and 
prejudicial  to  the  interests  of  the  republic ;  that  wherever  the 
honour  of  the  English  flag  was  concerned,  he  was  punctilious 
and  obstinate  ;  that  he  peremptorily  insisted  on  an  article  which 
interdicted  all  trade  with  France,  and  which  could  not  but  be 
grievously  felt  on  the  Exchange  of  Amsterdam ;  that  when 
they  expressed  a  hope  that  the  Navigation  Act  would  be  re- 
pealed, he  burst  out  a  laughing,  and  told  them  that  the  thing 
was  not  to  be  thought  of.  He  carried  all  his  points ;  and  a 
solemn  contract  was  made  by  which  England  and  the  Batavian 
federation  bound  themselves  to  stand  firmly  by  each  other 
against  France,  and  not  to  make  peace  except  by  mutual  con- 
sent. But  one  of  the  Dutch  plenipotentiaries  declared  that  he 
was  afraid  of  being  one  day  held  up  to  obloquy  as  a  traitor  for 
conceding  so  much ;  and  the  signature  of  another  plainly  ap- 
peared to  have  been  traced  by  a  hand  shaking  with  emotion.* 

Meanwhile  under  William's  skilful  management  a  treaty  of 
alliance  had  been  concluded  between  the  States  General  and 
the  Emperor.  To  that  treaty  Spain  and  England  gave  in  their 
adhesion  ;  and  thus  the  four  great  powers  which  had  long  been 
bound  together  by  a  friendly  understanding  were  bound  togeth- 
er by  a  formal  contract,  f 

*  The  best  account  of  these  negotiations  will  be  found  in  Wagenaar,  Ixi. 
He  had  access  to  Wilson's  pape:  a,  :nul  has  quoted  largely  from  them.  It  was 
Witsen  who  signed  in  violent  agitation,  "  zo  als,"  he  says,  "  myne  beeremle  hand 
getuipen  kan."  Tho  treaties  will  ba  found  in  Burnout's  Corps  Diplomatique. 
They  were  signed  in  August  1689. 

t  The  treaty  between  the  Emperor  and  the  States  General  is  dated  May  12, 
1689.  It  will  be  found  iu  Duniont's  Corps  Diplomatique. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  393 

But  before  that  formal  contract  had  been  signed  and  sealed, 
all  the  contracting  parties  were  in  arms.  Early  in  the  year 
]  689  war  was  raging  all  over  the  continent  from  the  Hsemus 
to  the  Pyrenees.  France,  attacked  at  once  on  every  side,  made 
on  every  side  a  vigorous  defence  ;  and  her  Turkish  allies  kept 
a  great  German  force  fully  employed  in  Servia  and  Bulgaria. 
On  the  whole,  the  results  of  the  military  operations  of  the  sum- 
mer were  not  unfavourable  to  the  confederates.  Beyond  the 
Danube,  the  Christians,  under  Prince  Lewis  of  Baden,  gained 
a  succession  of  victories  over  the  Mussulmans.  In  the  passes  of 
Roussillon,  the  French  troops  contended  without  any  decisive 
advantage  against  the  martial  peasantry  of  Catalonia.  One 
German  army,  led  by  the  Elector  of  Bavaria,  occupied  the 
Archbishopric  of  Cologne.  Another  was  commanded  by 
Charles,  Duke  of  Lorraine,  a  sovereign  who,  driven  from  his 
own  dominions  by  the  arms  of  France,  had  turned  soldier  of 
fortune,  and  had,  as  such,  obtained  both  distinction  and  revenge. 
He  marched  against  tho  devastators  of  the  Palatinate,  forced 
them  to  retire  behind  the  Rhine,  and,  after  a  long  siege,  took 
the  important  and  strongly  fortified  city  of  Mentz. 

Between  the  Sambre  and  the  Meuse  the  French,  commanded 
by  Marshal  Humieres,  were  opposed  to  the  Dutch,  commanded 
by  the  Prince  of  Waldeck,  an  officer  who  had  long  served  the 
States  General  with  fidelity  and  ability,  though  not  always 
with  good  fortune,  and  who  stood  high  in  the  estimation  of 
William.  Under  Waldeck 's  orders  was  Marlborough,  to  whom 
"William  had  confided  an  English  brigade  consisting  of  the  best 
regiments  of  the  old  army  of  James.  Second  to  Marlborough 
in  command,  and  second  also  in  professional  skill,  was  Thomas 
Talmash,  a  brave  soldier,  destined  to  a  fate  never  to  be  men- 
tioned without  shame  and  indignation.  Between  the  army  of 
Waldeck  and  the  army  of  Humieres  no  general  action  took 
place :  but  in  a  succession  of  combats  the  advantage  was  on  the 
side  of  the  confederates.  Of  these  combats  the  most  important 
took  place  at  Wai  court  on  the  fifth  of  August.  The  French 
attacked  an  outpost  defended  by  the  English  brigade,  were 
vigorously  repulsed,  and  were  forced  to  retreat  in  confusion, 


394  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

alxxndoning  a  few  field  pieces  to  the  conquerors  and  leaving 
more  than  six  hundred  corpses  on  the  ground.  Marlhorough, 
on  this  as  on  every  similar  occasion,  acquitted  himself  like  a 
valiant  and  skilful  captain.  The  Coldstream  Guards  com- 
manded by  Talmash,  and  the  regiment  which  is  now  called  the 
sixteenth  of  the  line,  commanded  by  Colonel  Robert  Hodges, 
distinguished  themselves  highly.  The  Ro}ral  regiment  too, 
which  had  a  few  months  before  set  up  the  standard  of  rebellion 
at  Ipswich,  proved  on  this  day  that  William,  ia  freely  pardoning 
that  great  fault,  had  acted  not  less  wisely  than  generously.  The 
testimony  which  Waldeck  in  his  despatch  bore  to  the  gallant 
conduct  of  the  islanders  was  read  with  delight  by  their  country- 
men. The  fight  indeed  was  no  more  than  a  skirmish:  but  it 
was  a  sharp  and  bloody  skirmish.  There  had  within  living 
memory  been  no  equally  serious  encounter  between  the  English 
and  French  ;  and  our  ancestors  were  naturally  elated  by  finding 
that  many  years  of  inaction  and  vassalage  did  not  appear  to 
have  enervated  the  courage  of  the  nation.* 

The  Jacobites  however  discovered  in  the  events  of  the  cam- 
paign abundant  matter  for  invective.  Marlborough  was,  not 
without  reason,  the  object  of  their  bitterest  hatred.  In  his 
behaviour  on  a  field  of  battle  malice  itself  cor  d  find  little  to 
censure  :  but  there  were  other  parts  of  his  conduct  which  pre- 
sented a  fair  mark  for  obloquy.  Avarice  is  rarely  the  vice  of  a 
young  man  :  it  is  rarely  the  vice  of  a  great  man  :  but  Marl- 
borough  was  one  of  the  few  who  have,  in  the  bloom  of  youth, 
loved  lucre  more  than  wine  or  women,  and  who  have,  at  the 
height  of  greatness,  loved  lucre  more  than  power  or  fame.  All 
the  precious  gifts  which  nature  had  lavished  on  him  he  valued 
chiefly  for  what  they  would  fetch.  At  twenty  he  made  money 
of  his  beauty  and  his  vigour.  At  sixty  he  made  money  of  his 
genius  and  his  glory.  The  applauses  which  were  justly  due  to 
his  conduct  at  Walcourt  could  i>ot  altogether  drown  the  voices 
of  those  who  muttered  that,  wherever  a  broad  piece  was  to  be 
saved  or  got,  this  hero  was  a  mere  Euclio,  a  mere  Harpagon  ; 

*  See  the  despatch  of  Waldeck  in  the  London  Gazette,  Aug.  26,  1689  ;  His- 
torical Records  of  the  First  Regiment  of  Foot ;  Dangeau,  Aug.  28 ;  Monthly- 
Mercury,  September  1089. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  395 

that,  though  he  drew  a  large  allowance  under  pretence  of  keep- 
ing a  public  table,  he  never  asked  an  officer  to  dinner ;  that  his 
muster  rolls  were  fraudulently  made  up  ;  that  he  pocketed  pay 
in  the  names  of  men  who  had  long  been  dead,  of  men  who  had 
been  killed  in  his  own  sight  four  years  before  at  Sedgemoor ; 
that  there  were  twenty  such  names  in  one  troop  ;  that  there 
were  thirty-six  in  another.  Nothing  but  the  union  of  dauntless 
courage  and  commanding  powers  of  mind  with  a  bland  temper 
and  winning  manners  could  have  enabled  him  to  gain  and  keep, 
in  spite  of  faults  eminently  unsoldierlike,  the  good  will  of  his 
soldiers.* 

About  the  time  at  which  the  contending  armies  in  every 
part  of  Europe  were  going  into  winter  quarters,  a  new  Pontiff 
ascended  the  chair  of  Saint  Peter.  Innocent  the  Eleventh  was 
no  more.  His  fate  had  been  strange  indeed.  His  conscientious 
and  fervent  attachment  to  the  Church  of  which  he  was  the  head 
had  induced  him,  at  one  of  the  most  critical  conjunctures  in  her 
history,  to  ally  himself  with  her  mortal  enemies.  The  news  of 
his  decease  was  received  with  concern  and  alarm  by  Protestant 
princes  and  commonwealths,  and  with  joy  and  hope  at  Versailles 
and  Dublin.  An  extraordinary  ambassador  of  high  rank  was 
instantly  despatched  by  Lewis  to  Rome.  The  French  garrison 
which  had  been  placed  in  Avignon  was  withdrawn.  When  the 
votes  of  the  Coaclave  had  been  united  in  favour  of  Peter  Otto- 
buoni,  an  ancient  Cardinal  who  assumed  the  appellation  of 
Alexander  the  Eighth,  the  representative  of  France  assisted  at 
the  installation,  bore  up  the  cope  of  the  new  Pontiff,  and  put 
into  the  hands  of  His  Holiness  a  letter  in  which  the  most  Chris- 
tian King  declared  that  he  renounced  the  odious  privilege  of 
protecting  robbers  and  assassins.  Alexander  pressed  the  letter 
to  his  lips,  embraced  the  bearer,  and  talked  with  rapture  of  the 
near  prospect  of  reconciliation.  Lewis  began  to  entertain  a 
hope  that  the  influence  of  the  Vatican  might  be  .exerted  to  dis- 
solve the  alliance  between  the  House  of  Austria  and  the  hereti- 

*  See  the  Dear  Bargain,  a  Jacobite  pamphlet,  clandestinely  printed  in  1690. 
"I  have  not  patience,"  says  the  writer,  ''after  this  wretch  (Marlborough)  to 
mention  any  other.  All  are  iunote  it  comparatively,  even  Kirke  himself." 


39G  HISTOKY    OF   ENGLAND. 

cal  usurper  of  the  English  throne.  James  was  even  more  s.-w- 
gulne.  He  was  foolish  enough  to  expect  that  the  new  pope 
would  give  him  money,  and  ordered  Melfort,  who  had  now 
acquitted  himself  of  his  mission  at  Versailles,  to  hasten  to 
Rome,  and  beg  His  Holiness  to  contribute  something  towards 
the  good  work  of  upholding  pure  religion  in  the  British  islands. 
But  it  soon  appeared  that  Alexander,  though  he  might  hold 
language  different  from  that  of  his  predecessor,  was  determined 
to  follow  in  essentials  his  predecessor's  policy.  The  original 
cause  of  the  quarrel  between  the  Holy  See  and  Lewis  was  not 
removed.  The  King  continued  to  appoint  prelates:  the  Pope 
continued  to  refuse  them  institution  ;  and  the  consequence  was 
that  a  fourth  part  of  the  dioceses  of  Franca  had  bishops  who 
were  incapable  of  performing  any  episcopal  function.* 

The  Anglican  Church  was,  at  this  time,  not  lees  distracted 
than  the  Galilean  Church.  The  first  of  August  had  been  fixed 
by  Act  of  Parliament  as  the  day  before  the  close  of  which  all 
beneficed  clergymen  and  all  persons  holding  academical  offices 
must,  on  pain  of  suspension,  swear  allegianco  to  William  and 
Mary.  During  the  earlier  part  of  the  summer,  the  Jacobites 
had  hoped  that  the  number  of  nonjurors  would  be  so  considera- 
ble as  seriously  to  alarm  and  embarrass  the  government.  But 
this  hope  was  disappointed.  Few  indeed  of  the  clergy  were 
Whigs.  Few  were  Tories  of  that  moderate  school  which  ac- 
knowledged, reluctantly  and  with  reserve,  that  extreme  abuses 
might  sometimes  justify  a  nation  in  resorting  to  extreme  reme- 
dies. The  great  majority  of  the  profession  still  held  the  doc- 
trine of  passive  obedience  :  but  that  majority  was  now  divided 
into  two  sections.  A  question,  which,  before  the  Revolution, 
had  been  mere  matter  of  speculation,  and  had  therefore,  though 
sometimes  incidentally  raised,  been,  by  most  persons,  very  super- 
ficially considered,  had  now  become  practically  most  important. 
The  doctrine  of  passive  obedience  being  taken  for  granted,  to 

*  See  the  Mercn  i:?s  for  September  1GF9,  and  the  four  following  months.  See 
also  Wal.voo  1's  Mercarhia  Itsformatus  of  Sept.  1H,  Sept.  2o,  and  Oct.  8,  1C89. 
Melton's  Instructions,  a-;d  his  memorials  to  the  Fops  and  the  Cardinal  of  Tste, 
are  among  tbe  Nairne  Papers  ;  and  some  extracts  have  b^eii  printed  by  Mac- 
phorsou. 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY  397 

whom  was  that  obedience  due  ?  While  the  hereditary  right  and 
the  possession  were  conjoined,  there  was  no  room  for  doubt: 
but  the  hereditary  right  and  the  possession  were  now  separated. 
One  prince  raised  by  the  Revolution,  was  reigning  at  West- 
minster, passing  laws,  appointing  magistrates  and  prelates,  send- 
ing forth  armies  and  fleets.  His  judges  decided  causes.  His 
Sheriffs  arrested  debtors,  and  executed  criminals.  Justice, 
order,  property,  would  cease  to  exist,  and  .society  would  be  re- 
solved into  chaos,  but  for  his  Great  Seal.  Another  prince, 
deposed  by  the  Revolution,  was  living  abroad.  He  could  exercise 
none  of  the  powers  and  perform  none  of  the  duties  of  a  ruler, 
and  could,  as  it  seemed,  be  restored  only  by  means  as  violent 
as  those  by  which  he  had  been  displaced.  To  which  of  these 
two  princes  did  Christian  men  owe  allegiance  ? 

To  a  large  part  of  the  clergy  it  appeared  that  the  plain  letter 
ef  Scripture  required  them  to  submit  to  the  Sovereign  who  was 
in  possession,  without  troubling  themselves  about  his  title.  The 
powers  which  the  Apostle,  in  the  text  most  familiar  to  the 
Anglican  divines  of  that  age,  pronounces  to  be  ordained  of  God, 
are  not  the  powers  that  can  be  traced  back  to  a  legitimate  origin, 
but  tho  powers  that  be.  When  Jesus  was  asked  whether  the 
chosen  people  might  lawfully  give  tribute  to  Caesar,  he  replied 
by  asking  the  questioners,  not  whether  Cassar  could  make  out  a 
pedigree  derived  from  the  old  royal  house  of  Judah,  but  whether 
the  coin  which  they  scrupled  to  pay  into  Caesar's  treasury  camo 
from  Caesar's  mint,  in  other  words,  whether  Caesar  actually 
possessed  the  authority  and  performed  the  functions  of  a  ruler. 

It  is  generally  held,  with  much  appearance  of  reason,  that 
the  most -trust  worthy  comment  on  the  text  of  the  Gospels  and 
Epistles  is  to  be  found  in  the  practice  of  the  primitive  Christians, 
when  that  practice  can  be  satisfactorily  ascertained  ;  and  it  so 
happened  that  the  times  during  which  the  Church  is  universally 
acknowledged  to  have  been  in  the  highest  state  of  purity  were 
times  of  frequent  and  violent  political  change.  One  at  least  of 
the  Apostles  appears  to  have  lived  to  see  four  Emperors  pulled 
down  in  little  more  than  a  year.  Of  the  martyrs  of  the  third 
century  a  great  proportion  must  have  been  able  to  remember 


398  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

ten  or  twelve  revolutions.  Those  martyrs  must  have  had  occa- 
sion often  to  consider  what  was  their  duty  towards  a  prince  just 
raised  to  power  by  a  successful  insurrection.  That  they  were, 
one  and  all,  deterred  by  the  fear  of  punishment  from  doing  what 
they  thought  right,  is  an  imputation  which  no  candid  infidel 
would  throw  on  them.  Yet,  if  there  be  any  proposition  which 
can  with  perfect  confidence  be  affirmed  touching  the  early  Chris- 
tians, it  is  this,  that  they  never  once  refused  obedience  to  any 
actual  ruler  on  account  of  the  illegitimacy  of  his  title.  At  one 
time,  indeed,  the  supreme  power  was  claimed  by  twenty  or  thirty 
competitors.  Every  province  from  Britain  to  Egypt  had  its 
own  Augustus.  All  these  pretenders  could  not  be  rightful 
Emperors.  Yet  it  does  not  appear  that,  in  ary  place,  the  faith- 
ful had  any  scruple  about  submitting  to  the  person  who,  in  that 
place,  exercised  the  imperial  functions.  While  the  Christian 
of  Rome  obeyed  Aurelian,  the  Christian  of  Lyons  obeyed  Tetri- 
cus,  and  the  Christian  of  Palmy  ra^beyed  Zenobia.  "  Day  and 
night," — such  were  the  words  which  the  great  Cyprian,  Bishop 
of  Carthage,  addressed  to  the  representative  of  Valerian  and 
Gallienus, — "  day  and  night  do  we  Christians  pray  to  the  one 
true  God  for  the  safety  of  our  Emperors."  Yet  those  Emperors 
had  a  few  months  before  pulled  down  their  predecessor  -ZErnilia- 
nus,  who  had  pulled  down  his  predecessor  Gallus,  who  had 
climbed  to  power  on  the  ruins  of  the  house  of  his  predecessor 
Decius,  who  had  slain  his  predecessor  Philip,  who  had  slain  his 
predecessor  Gordian.  "Was  it  possible  to  believe  that  a  saint, 
who  had,  in  the  short  space  of  thirteen  or  fourteen  years,  borne 
true  allegiance  to  this  series  of  rebels  and  regicides,  would  have 
made  a  schism  in  the  Christian  body  rather  than  acknowledge 
King  William  and  Queen  Mary  ?  A  hundred  times  those 
Anglican  divines  who  had  taken  the  oaths  challenged  their  more 
scrupulous  brethren  to  cite  a  single  instance  in  which  the  prim- 
itive Church  had  refused  obedience  to  a  successful  usurper  ;  and 
a  hundred  times  the  challenge  was  evaded.  The  non jurors  had 
little  to  say  on  this  head,  except  that  precedents  were  of  no 
force  when  opposed  to  principles,  a  proposition  which  came  with 
but  a  bad  grace  from  a  school  which  had  always  professed  an 


WILLIAM    AND   MART.  399 

almost  superstitious  reverence  for  the  authority  of  the  Fathers.* 
To  precedents  drawn  from  later  and  more  corrupt  times 
little  respect  was  due.  But,  even  in  the  history  of  later  and 
more  corrupt  times,  the  non jurors  could  not  easily  find  any  pre- 
cedent that  could  serve  their  pin-pose.  In  our  own  country 
many  Kings,  who  had  not  the  hereditary  right,  had  filled  the 
throne  :  but  it  had  never  been  thought  inconsistent  with  the 
duty  of  a  Christian  to  be  a  true  liegeman  to  such  Kings.  The 
usurpation  of  Henry  the  Fourth,  the  more  odious  usurpation  of 
Richard  the  Third,  had  produced  no  schism  in  the  Church.  As 
soon  as  the  usurper  was  firm  in  his  seat,  Bishops  had  done 
homage  to  him  for  their  domains  :  Convocations  had  presented 
addresses  to  him,  and  granted  him  supplies  ;  nor  had  any  casuist 
ever  pronounced  that  such  submission  to  a  prince  in  possession 
was  deadly  sin.f 

With  the  practice  of  the  whole  Christian  world  the  authorita- 
tive teaching  of  the  Church  of  England  appeared  to  be  in  strict 
h  irmony.  The  Homily  on  Wilful  Rebellion,  a  di  course  which  in- 
culcates, in  unmeasured  terms,  the  duty  of  obeying  rulers,  speaks 

*  See  the  Answer  of  a  Nonjuror  to  the  Bishop  of  Sarum's  challenge  in  the 
Appendix  to  the  Life  of  Kettlevvell.  Among  the  Tanner  MSS.  in  the  Bodleian 
Library  is  a  paper  which,  sis  Bancroft  thought  it  worth  preserving,  I  venture  to 
quote.  The  writer,  a  strong  nonjuror,  after  trying  to  evade,  by  many  pitiable 
shifts,  the  argument  drawn  by  a  more  co  npliant  divine  from  the  practice  of  the 
primitive  Church,  proceeds  thus  :  "  Suppose  the  primitive  Christians  all  along, 
from  the  time  of  the  very  Apostles,  had  been  as  regardless  of  their  oaths  by 
former  princes  as  he  suggests,  will  he  therefore  say  that  their  practice  is  to  be  a 
rule?  Ill  things  have  been  done,  and  very  generally  abetted,  by  men  of  other- 
wise very  orthodox  principles."  The  argument  from  the  practice  of  the  primi- 
tive Christians  is  very  strongly  put  in  a  tract  entitled  The  Doctrine  of  Nonresist- 
ance  or  Passive  Obedience  No  Way  concerned  in  the  Controversies  now  depend- 
ing between  the  Williamites  and  the  Jacobites,  by  a  Lay  Gentleman,  of  the 
Communion  qf  the  Church  of  England,  as  by  Law  established,  1689.  The  author 
of  this  tract  was  Edmund  Bohun,  whom  I  shall  have  occasion  to  mention  here- 
after. 

t  One  of  the  most  adulatory  addresses  ever  voted  by  a  Convocation  was  to 
Richard  the  Third.  It  will  be  found  in  Wilkins's  Concilia.  Dryden,  in  his  line 
rifacimento  of  one  of  the  linest  passages  in  the  Prologue  to  the  Canterbury  Tales, 
represents  the  Good  Parson  as  choosing  to  resign  his  benefice  rather  than  ac- 
knowledge the  Duke  of  Lancaster  to  be  King  of  England.  For  this  representa- 
tion no  warrant  can  be  found  in  Chaucer's  Poem,  or  anywhere  else.  Dryden 
wished  to  write  something  that  would  gall  the  clergy  who  had  taken  the  oaths, 
and  therefore  attributed  to  a  Roman  Catholic  priest  of  the  fourteenth  century  a 
superstition  which  originated  among  the  Anglican  priests  of  the  seventeenth 
century. 


400  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

of  none  but  actual  rulers.  Nay,  the  people  are  distinctly  told  in 
that  Homily  that  they  are  bound  to  obey,  not  only  their  legitimate 
prince,  but  any  usurper  whom  God  shall  in  anger  set  over  them 
for  their  sins.  And  surely  it  would  be  the  height  of  absurdity 
to  say  that  we  must  accept  submissively  such  usurpers  as  God 
sends  in  anger  but  most  pertinaciously  withhold  our  obedience 
from  usurpers  whom  He  sends  in  mercy.  Grant  that  it  was  a 
crime  to  invite  the  Prince  of  Orange  over,  a  crime  to  join  him, 
a  crime  to  make  him  King  ;  yet  what  was  the  whole  history  of 
the  Jewish  nation  and  of  the  Christian  Church  but  a  record  of 
cases  in  which  Providence  had  brought  good  out  of  evil  ?  And 
what  theologian  would  assert  that,  in  such  cases,  we  ought, 
from  abhorrence  of  the  evil,  to  reject  the  good  ? 

On  these  grounds  a  large  body  of  divines,  still  reasserting  the 
doctrine  that  to  resist  the  Sovereign  must  always  be  sinful,  con- 
ceived that  William  was  now  the  Sovereign  whom  it  would  be 
sinful  to  resist. 

To  these  arguments  the  nonjurors  replied  that  Saint  Paul 
must  have  meant  by  the  powers  that  be  the  rightful  powers  that 
be  ;  and  that  to  put  any  other  interpretation  on  his  words  would 
be  to  outrage  common  sense,  to  dishonour  religion,  to  give 
scandal  to  weak  believers,  to  give  an  occasion  of  triumph  to 
scoffers.  The  feelings  of  all  mankind  must  be  shocked  by  the 
proposition  that,  as  soon  as  a  King,  however  clear  his  title,  how- 
ever wise  and  good  his  administration,  is  expelled  by  traitors, 
all  his  servants  arc  bound  to  abandon  him,  and  to  range  them- 
selves on  the  side  of  his  enemies.  In  all  ages  and  nations, 
fidelity  to  a  good  cause  in  adversity  had  been  regarded  as  a 
virtue.  In  all  ages  and  nations,  the  politician  whose  practice 
was  always  to  be  on  the  side  which  was  uppermost  had  been 
despised.  This  new  Toryism  was  worse  than  Whiggism.  To 
break  through  the  ties  of  allegiance  because  the  Sovereign  was 
a  tyrant  was  doubtless  a  very  great  sin  :  but  it  was  a  sin  for  which 
specious  names  and  pretexts  might  be  found,  and  into  which  a 
brave  and  generous  man,  not  instructed  in  divine  truth  and 
guarded  by  divine  grace,  might  easily  fall.  But  to  break  through 
the  ties  of  allegiance  merely  because  the  Sovereign  was  unfortu- 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  401 

nate  was  not  only  wicked,  but  dirty.  Could  any  unbeliever 
offer  a  greater  insult  to  the  Scriptures  than  by  asserting  that 
the  Scriptures  had  enjoined  on  Christians  as  a  sacred  duty  what 
the  light  of  nature  had  taught  heathens  to  regard  as  the  last 
excess  of  baseness  ?  In  the  Scriptures  was  to  be  found  the  his- 
tory of  a  King  of  Israel,  driven  from  his  palace  by  an  unnatural 
son,  and  compelled  to  fly  beyond  Jordan.  David,  like  James, 
had  the  right  :  Absalom,  like  William,  had  the  possession. 
Would  any  student  of  the  sacred  writings  dare  to  affirm  that  the 
conduct  of  Shimei  on  that  occasion  was  proposed  as  a  pattern  to 
be  imitated,  and  that  Barzillai,  who  loyally  adhered  to  his  fugi- 
tive master,  was  resisting  the  ordinance  of  God,  and  receiving 
to  himself  damnation  ?  Would  any  true  son  of  the  Church  of 
England  seriously  maintain  that  a  man  who  was  a  strenuous 
royalist  till  after  the  battle  of  Naseby,  who  then  went  over  to 
the  Parliament,  who,  as  soon  as  the  Parliament  had  been  purged 
became  an  obsequious  servant  of  the  Rump,  and  who,  as  soon 
as  the  Rump  had  been  ejected,  professed  himself  a  faithful  sub- 
ject of  the  Protector,  was  more  deserving  of  the  respect  of 
Christian  men  than  the  stout  old  Cavalier  who  bore  true  fealty  to 
Charles  the  First  in  prison  and  to  Charles  the  Second  in  exile, 
and  who  was  ready  to  put  lands,  liberty,  life,  in  peril,  rather 
than  acknowledge,  by  word  or  act,  the  authority  of  any  of 
the  upstart  governments  which,  during  that  evil  time,  obtained 
possession  of  a  power  not  legitimately  theirs  ?  And  what  dis- 
tinction was  there  between  that  case  and  the  case  which  had  now 
arisen  ?  That  Cromwell  had  actually  enjoyed,  as  much  power 
as  William,  nay  much  more  power  than  William,  was  quite  cer- 
tain. That  the  power  of  William,  as  well  as  the  power  of 
Cromwell,  had  an  illegitimate  origin  every  divine  who  held  the 
doctrine  of  nonresistance  would  admit.  How  then  was  it  pos- 
sible for  such  a  divine  to  deny  that  <.  b  'dience  had  been  due  to 
Cromwell  and  yet  to  affirm  that  it  was  due  to  William  ?  To 
suppose  that  there  could  be  such  inconsistency  without  dishones- 
ty would  be,  not  charity,  but  weakness.  Those  who  were  de- 
termined to  comply  with  the  Act  of  Parliament  would  do  better 
to  speak  out,  and  to  say,  what  everybody  knew,  that  they  com- 
VOL.  III.— 26  * 


402  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

plied  simply  to  save  their  benefices.  The  motive  was  no  doubt 
strong.  That  a  clergyman  who  was  a  husband  and  a  father 
should  look  forward  with  dread  to  the  first  of  August  and  the 
first  of  February  was  natural.  But  he  would  do  well  to  remem- 
ber that,  however  terrible  might  be  the  day  of  suspension  and 
the  day  of  deprivation,  there  would  assuredly  come  two  other 
days  more  terrible  still,  the  day  of  death  and  the  day  of  judgment.* 

The  swearing  clergy,  as  they  were  called,  were  riot  a  little 
perplexed  by  this  reasoning.  Nothing  embarrassed  them  more 
than  the  analogy  which  the  nonjurors  were  never  weary  of 
pointing  out  between  the  usurpation  of  Cromwell  and  the  usurpa- 
tion of  William.  For  there  was  in  that  age  no  High  Churchman 
who  would  not  have  thought  himself  reduced  to  an  absurdity, 
if  he  had  heen  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  saying  that  the  Church 
had  commanded  her  sons  to  obey  Cromwell.  And  yet  it  was 
impossible  to  prove  that  William  wa3  more  fully  in  possession 
of  supreme  power  than  Cromwell  had  been.  The  swearers 
therefore  avoided  coming  to  close  quarters  with  the  nonjurors 
on  this  point,  as  carefully  as  the  nonjurors  avoided  coming  to 
close  quarters  with  the  swearers  on  the  question  touching  the 
practice  of  the  primitive  Church. 

The  truth  is  that  the  theory  of  government  which  had  long 
been  taught  by  the  clergy  was  so  absurd  that  it  could  lead  to 
nothing  but  absurdity.  Whether  the  priest  who  adhered  to  that 
theory  swore  or  refused  to  swear,  he  was  alike  unable  to  give  a 
rational  explanation  of  his  conduct.  If  he  swore,  he  could  vin- 
dicate his  swearing  only  by  laying  down  propositions  against 
which  every  honest  heart  instinctively  revolts,  only  by  proclaim- 
ing that  Christ  had  commanded  the  Church  to  desert  the  righte- 
ous cause  as  soon  as  that  cause  ceased  to  prosper,  and  to  strength- 
en the  hands  of  successful  villany  against  afflicted  virtue.  And 
yet,  strong  as  were  the  objections  to  this  doctrine,  the  objections 
to  the  doctrine  of  the  non juror  were,  if  possible,  stronger  still. 
According  to  him,  a  Christian  nation  ought  always  to  be  in  a 

*  See  the  Defence  of  the  Profession  which  the  Right  Reverend  Father  in  God 
John  Lake,  Lord  Bishop  of  Chichester,  made  upon  his  Deathbed  concerning 
Passive  Obedience  and  the  New  Oaths,  1690. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  403 

state  of  slavery  or  in  a  state  of  anarchy.  Something  is  to  be 
said  for  the  man  who  sacrifices  liberty  to  preserve  order.  Some- 
thing is  to  be  said  for  the  man  who  sacrifices  order  to  preserve 
liberty.  For  liberty  and  order  are  two  of  the  greatest  blessings 
which  a  society  can  enjoy ;  and,  when  unfortunately  they  ap- 
pear to  be  incompatible,  much  indulgence  is  due  to  those  who 
take  either  side.  But  the  nonjuror  sacrificed,  not  liberty  to 
order,  not  order  to  liberty,  but  both  liberty  and  order  to  a  super- 
stition as  stupid  and  degrading  as  the  Egyptian  worship  of  cats 
and  onions.  While  a  particular  person,  differing  from  other 
persons  by  the  niere  accident  of  birth,  was  on  the  throne,  though 
he  might  be  a  Nero,  there  was  to  be  no  insubordination.  When 
any  other  person  was  on  the  throne,  though  he  might  be  ah 
Alfred,  there  was  to  be  no  obedience.  It  mattered  not  how 
frantic  and  wicked  might  be  the  administration  of  the  dynasty 
which  had  the  hereditary  title,  or  how  wise  and  virtuous  might 
be  the  administration  of  a  government  sprung  from  a  revolution. 
Nor  could  any  time  of  limitation  be  pleaded  against  the  claim 
of  the  expelled  family.  The  lapse  of  years,  the  lapse  of  ages, 
made  .no  change.  To  the  end  of  the  world,  Christians  were  to 

O  * 

regulate  their  political  conduct  simply  according  to  the  pedigree 
of  their  ruler.  The  year  1800,  the  year  1900,  might  find  princes 
who  derived  their  title  from  the  votes  of  the  Convention  reign- 
ing iu  peace  and  prosperity.  No  matter  :  they  would  still  be 
usurpers  ;  and,  if,  in  the  twentieth  or  twenty-first  century,  any 
person  who  could  make  out  a  better  right  by  blood  to  the  crown 
should  call  on  a  late  posterity  to  acknowledge  him  as  King,  the 
call  must  be  obeyed  on  peril  of  eternal  perdition. 

A  Whig  might  well  enjoy  the  thought  that  the  controversies 
which  had  arisen  among  his  adversaries  had  established  the 
soundness  of  his  own  political  creed.  The  disputants  who  had 
long  agreed  hi  accusing  him  of  an  impious  error  had  now  effect- 
ually vindicated  him,  and  refuted  one  another.  The  High  Church- 
man who  took  the  oaths  had  shown  by  irrefragable  arguments 
from  the  Gospels  and  the  Epistles,  from  the  uniform  practice  of 
the  primitive  Church,  and  from  the  explicit  declarations  of  the 
Anglican  Church,  that  Christians  were  not  in  all  cases  bound  to 


404  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

pay  obedience  to  the  prince  who  had  the  hereditary  title.  The 
High  Churchman  who  would  not  take  the  oaths  had  bhown  as 
satisfactorily  that  Christians  were  not  in  all  cases  bound  to  pay 
obedience  to  the  prince  who  was  actually  reigning.  It  followed 
that,  to  entitle  a  government  to  the  allegiance  of  subjects,  some- 
thing was  necessary  different  from  mere  legitimacy, -and  different 
also  from  mere  possession.  What  that  something  was  the  Whigs 
had  no  difficulty  in  pronouncing.  In  their  view,  the  end  for 
which  all  governments  had  been  instituted  was  the  happiness  of 
society.  While  the  magistrate  was,  on  the  whole,  notwithstand- 
ing some  faults,  a  minister  for  good,  Reason  taught  mankind  to 
obey  him  ;  and  Religion,  giving  her  solemn  sanction  to  the  teach- 
ing of  Reason,  commanded  mankind  to  revere  him  as  divinely 
commissioned.  But  if  he  proved  to  be  a  minister  for  evil,  on 
what  grounds  was  he  to  be  considered  as  divinely  commissioned? 
The  Tories  who  swore  had  proved  that  he  ought  not  to  be  so 
considered  on  account  of  the  origin  of  his  power  :  the  Tories 
who  would  rot  swear  had  proved  as  clearly  that  he  ought  not  to 
be  so  considered  on  account  of  the  existence  of  his  power. 

Some  violent  and  acrimonious  Whigs  triumphed  ostenta- 
tiously and  with  merciless  insolence  over  the  perplexed  and  di- 
vided priesthood.  The  nonjuror  they  generally  affected  to  re- 
gard with  contemptuous  pity  as  a  dull  and  perverse,  but  sincere, 
bigot,  whose  absurd  practice  was  in  harmony  with  his  absurd 
theory,  and  who  might  plead,  in  excuse  for  the  infatuation  which 
impelled  him  to  ruin  his  country,  that  the  same  infatuation  had 
impelled  him  to  ruin'  himself.  They  reserved  the  sharpest 
taunts  for  those  divines  who,  having,  in  the  days  of  the  Exclu- 
sion Bill  and  the  Rye  House  plot,  been  distinguished  by  zeal 
for  the  divino  and  indefeasible  right  of  the  hereditary  Sover- 
eign, were  now  ready  to  swear  fealty  to  an  usurper.  Was  this 
then  the  real  sense  of  all  those  sublime  phrases  .which  had  re- 
sounded during  twenty  nine  years  from  innumerable  pulpits  ? 
Had  the  thousands  of  clergymen,  who  had  so  loudly  boasted  of 
the  unchangeable  loyalty  of  their  order,  really  meant  only  that 
their  loyalty  would  remain  unchangeable  till  the  next  change  of 
fortune  ?  It  was  idle,  it  was  impudent  in  them  to  pretend  that 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  40o 

their  present  conduct  was  consistent  with  their  former  language. 
If  any  Reverend  Doctor  had  at  length  been  convinced  that  he 
l:ad  been  iu  the  wrong,  he  surely  ought,  by  an  open  recantation 
to  make  all  the  amends  now  possible  to  the  persecuted,  the  cal- 
umniated, the  murdered  defenders  of  liberty.  If  he  was  still 
convinced  that  his  old  opinions  were  sound,  he  ought  manfully 
to  cast  in  his  lot  with  the  nonjuror.  Respect,  it  was  said,  is  due 
to  him  who  ingenuously  confesses  an  error  :  respect  is  due  to 
him  who  courageously  suffers  for  an  error :  but  it  is  difficult  to 
respect  a  minister  of  religion,  who,  while  asserting  that  he  still 
adheres  to  the  principles  of  the  Tories,  saves  a  benefice  by  tak- 
ing an  oath  which  can  be  honestly  taken,  only  011  the  principles 
of  the  Whigs. 

These  reproaches,  though  perhaps  not  altogether  unjust, 
were  unseasonable.  The  wiser  and  more  moderate  Whigs,  sensi- 
ble that  the  throne  of  William  could  not  stand  firm  if  it  had 
not  a  wider  basis  than  their  own  party,  abstained  at  this  con- 
juncture from  sneers  and  invectives,  and  exerted  themselves  to 
remove  the  scruples  and  to  soothe  the  irritated  feelings  of  the 
clergy.  The  collective  power  of  the  rectors  and  vicars  of  Eng- 
land was  immense  ;  and  it  was  much  better  that  they  should 
swear  for  the  most  flimsy  reason  which  could  be  devised  by  a 
sophist  than  that  they  should  not  swear  at  all. 

It  soon  became  clear  that  the  arguments  for  swearing, 
backed  as  they  were  by  some  of  the  strongest  motives  which  can 
influence  the  human  mind,  had  prevailed.  Above  twenty-nine 
thirtieths  of  the  profession  submitted  to  the  law.  Most  of  the 
divines  of  the  capital,  who  then  formed  a  separate  class,  and  who 
were  as  much  distinguished  from  the  rural  clergy  by  liberality 
of  sentiment  as  by  eloquence  and  learning,  gave  in  their  adhesion 
to  the  government  early,  and  with  every  sign  of  cordial  attach- 
ment. Eighty  of  them  repaired  together,  in  full  term,  to  West- 
minster Hall,  and  were  there  sworn.  The  ceremony  occupied 
so  long  a  time,  that  little  else  was  done  that  day  in  the  Courts  of 
Chancery  and  King's  Bench.*  But  in  general  the  compliance 

*  London  Gazette,  June  30, 1C89 ;  Luttrell's  Diary.    "The  eminentest  men," 
says  Lwt! veil. 


406  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

was  tardy,  sad,  and  sullen.  Many,  no  doubt,  deliberately  violated 
what  they  believed  to  be  their  duty.  Conscience  told  them  that 
they  were  committing  a  sin.  But  they  had  not  fortitude  to 
resign  the  parsonage,  the  garden,  the  glebe,  and  to  go  forth  with- 
out knowing  where  to  find  a  meal  or  a  roof  for  themselves  and 
their  little  ones.  Many  swore  with  doubts  and  misgivings.* 
Some  declared,  at  the  moment  of  taking  the  oath,  that  they  did 
not  mean  to  promise  that  they  would  not  submit  to  James,  if  he 
should  ever  be  in  a  condition  to  demand  their  allegiance.f  Some 
clergymen  in  the  North  were,  on  the  first  of  August,  going  in  a 
company  to  swear,  when  they  were  met  on  the  road  by  the  news 
of  the  battle  which  had  been  fought,  four  days  before,  in  the 
pass  of  Killiecrankie.  They  immediately  turned  back,  and  did 
not  again  leave  their  homes  on  the  same  errand  till  it  was  clear 
that  Dundee's  victory  had  made  no  change  in  the  state  of  public 
affairs  $  Even  of  those  whose  understandings  were  fully  con- 
vinced that  obedience  was  due  to  the  existing  government,  very 
few  kissed  the  book  with  the  heartiness  with  which  they  had 
formerly  plighted  their  faith  to  Charles  and  James.  Still  the 
thing  was  done.  Ten  thousand  clergymen  had  solemnly  called 
heaven  to  attest  their  promise  that  they  would  be  true  liegemen 
to  William ;  and  this  promise,  though  it  by  no  means  warranted 
him  in  expecting  that  they  would  strenuously  support  him,  had 
at  least  deprived  them  of  a  great  part  of  their  power  to  injure 
him.  They  could  not,  without  entirely  forfeiting  that  public 
respect  on  which  their  influence  depended,  attack,  except  in  an 
indirect  and  timidly  cautious  manner,  the  throne  of  one  whom 
they  had,  in  the  presence  of  God,  vowed  to  obey  as  their  King. 
Some  of  them,  it  is  true,  affected  to  read  the  prayers  for  the  new 
Sovereigns  iu  a  peculiar  tone  which  could  not  be  misunderstood. § 
Others  were  guilty  .of  still  grosser  indecency.  Thus,  one  wretch, 
just  after  praying  for  William  and  Mary  in  the  most  solemn 

*  See  in  Kettlewell's  Life,  iii.  72,  the  retractation  drawn  by  him  for  a  clergy- 
man who  had  taken  the  oath?,  and  who  afterwards  repented  of  having  done  so. 

t  SCR  the  account  of  Dr.  Dove's  conduct  in  Clarendon's  Diary,  and  the  account 
of  Dr.  Marsh's  conduct  in  the  Life  of  Kettlewell. 

t  The  Anatomy  of  a  Jacobite  Tory,  1690. 

§  Dialogue  between  a  Whig  and  a  Tory. 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  407 

office  of  religion  took  off  a  glass  to  their  damnation,  Another, 
after  performing  divine  service  on  a  fast  day  appointed  by  their 
authority,  dined  on  a  pigeon  pie,  and  while  he  cut  it  up,  uttered 
a  wish  that  it  was  the  usurper's  heart.  But  such  audacious 
wickedness  was  doubtless  rare  and  was  injurious  rather  to  the 
Church  than  to  the  government.* 

Those  clergymen  and  members  of  the  Universities  who  in- 
curred the  penalties  of  the  law  were  about  four  hundred  in 
number.  Foremost  in  rank  stood  the  Primate  and  six  of  his 
suffragans,  Turner  of  Ely,  Lloyd  of  Norwich,  Frampton  of 
Gloucester,  Lake  of  Chichester,  White  of  Peterborough,  and 
Ken.  of  Bath  and  Wells.  Thomas  of  Worcester  would  have 
made  a  seventh  :  but  he  died  three  weeks  before  the  day  of  sus- 
pension. On  his  deathbed  he  adjured  his  clergy  to  be  true  to 
the  cause  of  hereditary  right,  and  declared  that  those  divines 
who  tried  to  make  out  that  the  oaths  might  be  taken  without 
any  departure  from  the  loyal  doctrines  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land seemed  to  him  to  reason  more  Jesuitically  than  the  Jesuits 
themselves.f 

Ken,  who,  both  in  intellectual  and  in  moral  qualities,  ranked 
highest  among  the  nonjuring  prelates,  hesitated  long.  There 
were  few  clergymen  who  could  have  submitted  to  the  new  gov- 
ernment with  a  better  grace.  For,  when  nonresistance  and 
passive  obedience  were  the  favourite  themes  of  his  brethren,  he 
had  scarcely  ever  alluded  to  politics  in  the  pulpit.  He  owned 
that  the  arguments  in  favour  of  swearing  were  very  strong. 
He  went  indeed  so  far  as  to  say  that  his  scruples  would  be  com-' 
pletely  removed,  if  he  could  be  convinced  that  James  had  en- 
tered into  engagements  for  ceding  Ireland  to  the  French  King. 
It  is  evident  therefore  that  the  difference  between  Ken  and  the 
Whigs  was  not  a  difference  of  principle.  He  thought,  with  them, 
that  misgovernment,  carried  to  a  certain  point,  justified  a  trans- 
fer of  allegiance,  and  doubted  only  whether  the  misgovernment  of 
James  had  been  carried  quite  to  that  point.  Nay,  the  good  Bishop 
actually  began  to  prepare  a  pastoral  letter  explaining  his  reasons 

*  Luttrell's  Diary,  November  1691,  February  1692. 
t  Life  of  Kettlewell,  iii.  4. 


408  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

for  taking  the  oaths.  But,  before  it  was  finished,  he  received 
information  which  convinced  him  that  Ireland  had  cot  been 
made  over  to  France :  doubts  came  thick  upon  him  :  he  threw 
his  unfinished  letter  into  the  fire,  and  implored  his  less  scrupu- 
lous friends  not  to  urge  him  further.  He  was  sure,  he  said,  that 
they  had  acted  uprightly  :  he  was  glad  that  they  could  do  with 
a  clear  conscience  what  he  shrank  from  doing  :  he  felt  the  force 
of  their  reasoning  :  he  was  all  but  persuaded  ;  and  he  was  afraid 
to  listen  longer  lest  he  should  be  quite  persuaded :  for,  if  he 
should  comply,  and  his  misgivings  should  afterwards  return,  he 
should  be  the  most  miserable  of  men.  Not  for  wealth,  not  fora 
palace,  not  for  a  peerage,  would  he  run  the  smallest  risk  of  ever 
feeling  the  torments  of  remorse.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that,  of  the 
seven  nonjuring  prelates,  the  only  one  whose  name  carries  with 
it  much  weight  was  on  the  point  of  swearing,  and  was  prevented 
from  doing  so,  as  he  himself  acknowledged,  not  by  the  force  of 
reason,  but  by  a  morbid  scrupulosity  which  he  did  not  advise 
others  to  imitate.* 

Among  the  priests  who  refused  the  oaths  were  some  men 
eminent  in  the  learned  world,  as  grammarians,  chronologists, 
canonists,  and  antiquaries,  and  a  very  few  who  were  distinguished 

*  See  Turner's  Letter  to  Saneroft,  dated  on  Ascension  Day,  1689.  The  original 
is  among  the  Tanner  MSS.  in  the  Bodleian  Library.  But  the  letter  will  be  found, 
with  much  other  curious  matter,  in  the  Life  of  Ken  by  a  Layman,  lately  pub- 
lished. See  also  the  Life  of  Kettlewell,  iii.  95 ;  and  Ken's  Letter  to  Buniet, 
dated  October  5,  1C89,  in  Hawkins's  Life  of  Ken.  "  I  am  sure,"  Lady  Russell 
wrote  to  Dr.  Fitzwilliam,  "4he  Bishop  of  Bath  and  Wells  excited  others  to  com- 
ply, when  he  could  not  bring  himself  to  do  so,  but  rejoiced  when  others  did." 
Ken  declared  that  he  had  advised  nobody  to  take  the  oaths,  and  that  his  practice 
had  been  to  remit  those  who  asked  his  advice  to  their  own  studies  and  prayers. 
Lady  Russell's  assertion  and  Ken's  denial  will  be  found  to  come  nearly  to  the 
same  thing,  when  we  make  those  allowances  which  ought  to  be  made  for  fii:i- 
ation  and  feeling,  even  in  weighing  the  testimony  of  the  most  veracious  M  it- 
nesses.  Ken.  having  at  last  determined  to  east  in  his  lot  with  the  iiexijurors, 
naturally  tried  to  vindicate  his  consistency  as  far  as  he  honestly  could.  Lady 
Russell,  wishing  to  induce  her  friend  to  take  the  oaths,  naturally  made  .is  much 
of  Ken's  disposition  to  compliance  as  she  honestly  could.  She  went  too  far  in 
using  the  word  "excited."  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  clear  that  Ken,  by  remitting 
those  who  consulted  him  to  their  own  studies  and  prayers,  gave  them  to  under- 
stand that,  in  his  opinion,  the  oath  was  lawful  to  those  who,  after  a  serious 
enquiry,  thought  it  lawful.  If  people  had  asked  him  whether  they  might  law- 
fully commit  perjury  or  adultery,  he  would  assuredly  have  told  them,  not  to  con- 
sider the  point  maturely  and  to  implore  the  divine  direction,  but  to  abstain  on 
peril  of  (heir  soulg. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  409 

by  wit  and  eloquence ;  but  scarcely  one  can  be  named  who  was 
qualified  to  discuss  any  large  question  of  morals  or  politic?, 
scarcely  one  whose  writings  do  not  indicate  either  extreme 
feebleness  or  extreme  flightiness  of  mind.  Those  who  distrust" 
the  judgment  of  a  Whig  on  this  point  will  probably  allow  some 
weight  to  the  opinion  which  was  expressed,  many  years  after 
the  Revolution,  by  a  philosopher  of  whom  the  Tories  are  justly 
proud.  Johnson,  after  passing  in  review  the  celebrated  divines 
who  had  thought  it  sinful  to  swear  allegiance  to  William  the 
Third  a':d  George  the  First,  pronounced  that,  in  the  whole  body 
of  nonjurors,  there  was  one,  and  one  only,  who  could  reason.* 

The  nonjuror  in  whose  favour  Johnson  made  this  exception 
•was  Charles  Leslie.  Leslie  had,  before  the  Revolution,  been 
Chancellor  of  the  diocese  oc  Connor  in  Ireland.  He  had  been 
forward  in  opposition  to  Tyrconnel  ;  had,  as  a  justice  of  the 
peace  for  Monaghan,  refused  to  acknowledge  a  papist  as  Sheriff 
of  that  county  ;  and  had  been  so  courageous  as  to  send  some 
officers  of  the  Irish  army  to  prison  for  marauding.  But  the  doc- 
trine of  nonrasistance,  such  as  it  had  been  taught  by  Anglican 
divines  in  the  days  of  the  Rye  House  Plot,  was  immovably  fixed 
in  his  mind.  When  the  state  of  Ulster  became  such  that  a 
Protestant  who  remained  there  could  hardly  avoid  being  either 
a  rebel  or  a  martyr,  Leslie  fled  to  London.  His  abilities  and 
his  connections  were  such  that  he  might  easily  have  obtained 
high  preferment  in  the  Church  of  England.  But  he  took  his 

'  See  the  converration  of  June  9.  1784,  in  Boswell's  Life  of  .Johnson,  and  the 
note.  Boswell,  with  his  usual  absurdity,  i^  sure  that  Johnson  could  not  have 
recollected  '•  that  the  seven  bisho;>s.  ?o  justly  celebrated  for  their  magnanimous 
resistance  to  arbitrary  power,  were  yet  nonjurore."  Only  five  of  the  seven  were 
nonjurors  :  and  anybody  but  fioswell  would  have  known  that  a  man  may  resist 
a:bitrary  power,  and  yet  not  be  a  good  reasoner.  N.-iy.  the  resistance  v.-hi-k 
Sancroft  and  tha  other  noiijurlng  bishops  offered  to  arbitrary  power,  while  they 
continued  to  hold  the  doctrine  of  nouresistance.  i  *  ths  most  deci  ive  proof  that 
they  were  incapable  of  reasoning.  It  must  be  remembered  that  they  were  pre- 
pared to  tike  the  whole  kingly  power  from  James  and  to  bsstow  it  on  William, 
with  the  liile  ot  Kegent.  Their  scruple  was  merely  about  the  word  King. 

I  am  surprised  that  Johnson  should  hare  pronounced  \Viiliain  Law  no  '  ca- 
soner.  I.a\v  did  indeed  fall  into  great  errors  ;  but  they  were  errors  against  which 
logic  affords  no  security.  I -i  mere  dialectical  skill  he  had  very  few  superiors. 
That  he  w-is  more  than  once  victorious  over  Hoadlev  no  cancTd  Whi;  will  dc-t-.y. 
But  Law  did  not  belong  to  the  generation  with  which  I  have  now  to  do. 


410  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

place  in  the  front  rank  of  the  Jacobite  body,  and  remained  there 
steadfastly  through  all  the  dangers  and  vicissitudes  of  three  and 
thirty  troubled  years.  Though  constantly  engaged  in  theological 
controversy  with  Deists,  Jews,  Sociriians,  Presbyterians,  Papists, 
and  Quakers,  he  found  time  to  be  one  of  the  most  voluminous  po- 
litical writers  of  his  age.  Of  all  the  nonjuring  clergy  he  was  the 
best  qualified  to  discuss  constitutional  questions.  For,  before  he 
had  taken  orders  he  had  resided  long  in  the  Temple,  and  had 
been  studying  English  history  and  law,  while  most  of  the  other 
chiefs  of  the  schism  had  been  poring  over  the  Acts  of  Chalcedon, 
or  seeking  for  wisdom  in  the  Targum  of  Onkelos.* 

In  1689,  however,  Leslie  was  almost  unknown  in  England. 
Among  the  divines  who  incurred  suspicion  on  the  first  of  August 
in  that  year,  the  highest  in  popular  estimation  was  without  dis- 
pute Doctor  William  Sherlock.  Perhaps  no  simple  presbyter  of 
the  Church  of  England  has  ever  possessed  a  greater  authority 
over  his  brethren  than  belonged  to  Sherlock  at  the  time  of  the 
Revolution.  He  was  not  of  the  first  rank  among  his  contempo- 
raries as  a  scholar,  as  a  preacher,  as  a  writer  on  theology,  or  as 
a  writer  on  politics  :  but  in  all  the  four  characters  he  had  distin- 
guished himself.  The  perspicuity  and  liveliness  of  his  style 
have  been  praised  by  Prior  and  Addison.  The  facility  and  assi- 
duity with  which  he  wrote  are  sufficiently  proved  by  the  bulk  and 
dates  of  his  works.  There  were  indeed  among  the  clergy  men 
of  brighter  genius  and  men  of  wider  attainments  :  but  during  a 
long  period  there  was  none  who  more  completely  represented 
the  order,  none  who,  on  all  subjects,  spoke  more  precisely  the 
sense  of  the  Anglican  priesthood,  without  any  taint  of  Latitudi- 
narianism,  of  Puritanism,  or  of  Popery.  He  had,  in  the  days 
of  the  Exclusion  Bill,  when  the  power  of  the  dissenters  was  very 
great  in  Parliament  and  in  the  country,  written  strongly  against 
the  sin  of  nonconformity.  When  the  Rye  House  Plot  was  de- 
tected, he  had  zealously  defended  by  tongue  and  pen  the  doc- 
trine of  nonresistance.  His  services  to  the  cause  of  episcopacy 
and  monarchy  were  so  highly  valued  that  he  was  muHe  Master 
of  the  Temple.  A  pension  was  also  bestowed  ou  him  by 
*  Ware's  History  of  the  Writers  of  Ireland,  continued  by  Harris. 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  411 

Charles  :  but  that  pension  James  soon  took  away  :  for  Sherlock, 
though  he  held  himself  bound  to  pay  passive  obedience  to  the 
civil  power,  held  himself  equally  bound  to  combat  religious 
errors,  and  was  the  keenest  and  most  laborious  of  that  host  of 
controversialists  who,  in  the  day  of  peril,  manfully  defended  the 
Protestant  faith.  In  little  more  than  two  years  he  published 
sixteen  treatises,  some  of  them  large  books,  against  the  high 
pretensions  of  Rome.  Not  content  with  the  easy  victories 
which  he  gained  over  such  feeble  antagonists  as  those  who  were 
quartered  at  Clerkenwell  and  the  Savoy,  he  had  the  courage  to 
measure  his  strength  with  no  less  a  champion  than  Bossuet,  and 
came  out  of  the  conflict  without  discredit.-  Nevertheless  Sher- 
lock still  continued  to  maintain  that  no  oppression  could  justify 
Christians  in  resisting  the  kingly  authority.  When  the  Con- 
vention was  about  to  meet,  he  strongly  recommended,  in  a  tract 
which  was  considered  as  the  manifesto  of  a  large  part  of  the 
clergy,  that  James  should  be  invited  to  return  on  such  conditions 
as  might  secure  the  laws  and  religion  of  the  nation.*  The  vote 
which  placed  William  and  Mary  on  the  throne  filled  Sherlock 
with  sorrow  and  anger.  He  is  said  to  have  exclaimed  that  if 
the  Convention  was  determined  on  a  revolution,  the  clergy  would 
find  forty  thousand  good  Churchmen  to  effect  a  restoration.t 
Against  new  oaths  he  gave  his  opinion  plainly  and  warmly. 
He  professed  himself  at  a  loss  to  understand  how  any  honest 
man  could  doubt  that,  by  the  powers  that  be,  Saint  Paul  meant 
legitimate  powers  and  no  others.  No  name  was  in  1689  cited 
by  the  Jacobites  more  proudly  or  more  fondly  than  that  of 
Sherlock.  Before  the  end  of  1690  that  name  excited  very 
different  feelings. 

A  few  other  non jurors  ought  to  be  particularly  noticed. 
High  among  them  in  rank  was  George  Hickes,  dean  of  Wor- 
cester. Of  all  the  Englishmen  of  his  time  he  was  the  most 

O 

versed  in  the  old  Teutonic  languages ;  and  his  knowledge  of 
the  early  Christian  literature  was  extensive.  As  to  his  capa- 
city for  political  discussions,  it  may  be  sufficient  to  say  that  his 

*  Letter  to  a  member  of  the  Convention,  1689. 

t  Johnson's  Notes  on  the  Phoenix  Edition  of  Burnet's  Pastoral  Letter,  1692. 


412  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

favourite  argument  for  passive  obedience  was  drawn  from  the 
story  of  the  Theban  legion.  He  was  the  younger  brother  of 
that  unfortunate  John  Hickes  who  had  been  found  hidden  iu 
the,  malthouse  of  Alice  Lisle.  James  hud,  in  spite  of  all  solici- 
tation, put  both  John  Hickes  and  Alice  Lisle  to  death.  Persons 
who  did  not  know  the  strength  of  the  Dean's  principles  thought 
that  he  might  possibly  feel  some  resentment  on  this  account : 
for  he  was  of  no  gentle  or  forgiving  temper,  and  could  retain 
during  many  years  a  bitter  remembrance  of  small  injuries.  But 
he  was  strong  in  his  religious  and  political  faith  ;  he  reflected 
that  the  sufferers  were  dissenters ;  and  he  submitted  to  the  will 
of  the  Lord's  Anointed  not  only  with  patience  but  with  compla- 
cency. He  became  indeed  a  more  loving  subject  than  ever 
from  the  time  when  his  brother  was  hanged  and  his  brother's 
benefactress  beheaded.  While  almost  all  other  clergymen, 
appalled  by  the  Declaration  of  Indulgence  and  by  the  proceed- 
ings of  the  High  Com  mission,  were  beginning  to  think  that  they 
had  pushed  the  doctrine  of  nonresistance  a  little  too  far,  he  was 
writing  a  vindication  of  his  darling  legend,  and  trying  to 
convince  the  troops  at  Hounslow  that,  if  James  should  be 
pleased  to  massacre  them  all,  as  Maximian  had  massacred  the 
Theban  legion,  for  refusing  to  commit  idolatry,  it  would  be  their 
duty  to  pile  their  arms,  and  meekly  to  receive  the  crown  of 
martyrdom.  To  do  Ilickes  justice,  his  whole  conduct  after  the 
Revolution  proved  that  his  servility  had  sprung  neither  from 
fear  nor  from  cupidity,  but  from  mere  bigotry.* 

Jeremy  Collier,  who  was  turned  out  of  the  preachership  of 
the  Rolls,  was  a  man  of  a  much  higher  order.  lie  is  well 
entitled  to  grateful  and  respectful  mention  :  for  to  his  eloquence 
and  courage  is  to  be  chiefly  ascribed  the  purification  of  our 
lighter  literature  from  that  foul  taint  which  had  been  contracted 
during  the  Antipuritan  reaction.  He  was,  in  the  full  force  of 
the  words,  a  good  man.  He  was  also  a  man  of  eminent  abilities, 

*  The  best  notion  of  Hickes's  character  will  be  formed  from  his  numerous 
controversial  wrilings,  particularly  his  Jovian,  written  ia  It84,  his  Thebcean 
Legion  no  Fable,  wri. tea  iu  1087,  thouih  not  published  till  1714,  and  his  Dis- 
cour.es  upon  Dr.  Burnet  and  Dr.  Tillotson,  109j.  His  literary  fame  rests  on 
works  of  a  very  different  kind. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  413 

/ 

a  great  master  of  sarcasm,  a  great  master  of  rhetoric.*  His 
reading  too,  though  undigested,  was  of  immense  extent.  But 
his  mind  was  narrow  :  his  reasoning,  even  when  he  was  so 
fortunate  as  to  have  a  good  cause  to  defend,  was  singularly  futile 
and  inconclusive  ;  and  his  brain  was  almost  turned  by  pride,  not 
personal,  but  professional.  In  his  view,  a  priest  was  the  highest 
of  human  beings,  except  a  bishop.  Reverence  and  submission 
were  due  from  the  best  and  greatest  of  the  laity  to  the  least 
respectable  of  the  clergy-  However  ridiculous  a  man  in  holy 
orders  might  make  himself,  it  was  impiety  to  laugh  at  him.  So 
nervously  sensitive  im'eed  was  Collier  on  this  point  that  lie 
thought  it  profane  to  throw  any  reflection  even  on  the  ministers 
of  false  religions.  He  laid  it  down  as  a  rule  that  Muftis  and 
Augurs  ooght  always  to  be  mentioned  with  respect.  He  blamed 
Dryden  for  sneering  at  tUe  Hierophants  of  Apis.  He  praised 
Racine  for  giving  dignity  to  the  character  of  a  priest  of  Baal. 
He  praised  Corneille  for  not  bringing  that  learned  and  reverend 
divine  'liresias  on  the  stage  in  the  tragedy  of  CEdipus.  The 
omission.  Collier  owned,  spoiled  the  dramatic  effect  of  the  piece  : 
but  the  holy  function  was  much  too  solemn  to  be  played  with. 
Nay,  incredible  as  it  may  seem,  he  thought  it  improper  in  the 
laity  to  sneer  even  at  Presbyterian  preachers.  Indeed  his 
Jacobitism  was  little  more  than  one  of  the  forms  in  which  his 
zeal  for  the  dignity  of  his  profession  manifested  itself.  He 
abhorred  the  Revolution  less  as  a  rising  up  of  subjects  against 
their  King  than  as  a  rising  up  of  the  laity  against  the  sacerdotal 
caste.  The  doctrines  which  had  been  proclaimed  from  the 
pulpit  during  thirty  years  had  been  treated  with  contempt  by 
the  Convention.  A  new  government  had  been  set  up  in  oppo- 
sition to  the  wishes  of  the  spiritual  peers  in  the  House  of  Lords 
and  of  tho  priesthood  throughout  the  country.  A  secular 
assembly  had  taken  upon  itself  to  pass  a  law  requiring  arch- 
bishops and  bishops,  rectors  and  vicars,  to  -abjure,  on  pain  of 
deprivation,  what  they  had  been  teaching  all  their  lives. 

*  Colliar's  Tracts  o-i  the  Stage  are.  on  the  whole,  his  Iwjst  piere=s.  But  tli-^rt 
13  much  that  is  striking  in  his  politic  al  pamphlets.  His  "  Peisrasive  to  <  o  i*id- 
eration,  tendered  to  the  Royalists,  particularly  those  of  theCburcli  of  Ei)glaiid," 
•eeuu  to  uiJ  one  of  the  be.it  productions  of  the  Jacobite  press. 


414  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Whatever  meaner  spirits  might  do,  Collier  was  determined  not 
to  be  led  in  triumph  by  the  victorious  enemies  of  his  order. 
To  the  last  he  would  confront,  with  the  authoritative  port  of  an 
ambassador  of  heaven,  the  anger  of  the  powers  and  principalities 
of  the  earth. 

In  parts  Collier  was  the  first  man  among  the  nonjurors.  In 
erudition  the  first  place  must  be  assigned  to  Henry  Dodwell, 
who,  for  the  unpardonable  crime  of  having  a  small  estate  in 
Mayo,  had  been  attainted  by  the  Popish  Parliament  at  Dublin. 
He  was  Camdenian  Professor  of  Ancient  History  in  the  Univer- 
sity of  Oxford,  and  had  already  acquired  considerable  celebrity 
by  chronological  and  geographical  researches ;  but  though  he 
never  could  be  persuaded  to  take  orders,  theology  was  his 
favourite  study.  He  was  doubtless  a  pious  and  sincere  man.  He 
had  perused  innumerable  volumes  in  various  languages,  and  had 
indeed  acquired  more  learning  than  his  slender  faculties  were 
able  to  bear.  The  small  intellectual  spark  which  he  possessed 
was  put  out  by  the  fuel.  Some  of  his  books  seem  to  have  been 
written  in  a  madhouse,  and,  though  filled  with  proofs  of  his 
immense  reading,  degrade  him  to  the  level  of  James  Naylor  an,d 
Ludowick  Muggleton.  He  began  a  dissertation  intended  to 
prove  that  the  law  of  nations  was  a  divine  revelation  made  to  the 
family  which  was  preserved  in  the  ark.  He  published  a  trea- 
tise in  which  he  maintained  that  a  marriage  between  a  member 
of  the  Church  of  England  and  a  Dissenter  was  a  nullity,  and  that 
the  couple  were  in  the  sight  of  heaven  guilty  of  adultery.  He 
defended  the  use  of  instrumental  music  in  public  worship  on  the 
ground  that  the  notes  of  the  organ  had  a  power  to  counteract 
the  influence  of  devils  on  the  spinal  marrow  of  human  beings. 
In  his  treatise  on  this  subject  he  remarked  that  there  was  high 
authority  for  the  opinion  that  the  spinal  marrow,  when  decom- 
posed, became  a  serpent.  Whether  this  opinion  were  or  were 
not  correct,  he  thought  it  unnecessary  to  decide.  Perhaps,  he 
said,  the  eminent  men  in  whose  works  it  was  found  had  meant 
only  to  express  figuratively  the  great  truth,  that  the  Old  Serpent 
operates  on  us  chiefly  through  the  spinal  marrow.*  Dodwell's 
*  See  Brokesby's  Life  of  Dodwell.  The  Discourse  against  Marriages  iii  cllf- 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  415 

speculations  on  the  state  of  human  beings  after  death  are,  if  pos- 
sible, more  extraordinary  still.  He  tells  us  that  our  souls  are 
naturally  mortal.  Annihilation  is  the  fate  of  the  greater  part  of 
mankind,  of  heathens,  of  Mahometans,  of  unchristened  babes. 
The  gift  of  immortality  is  conveyed  in  the  sacrament  of  bap- 
tism :  but  to  the  efficacy  of  the  sacrament  it  is  absolutely  neces- 
sary that  the  water  be  poured,  and  the  words  pronounced  by  a 
minister  who  has  been  ordained  by  a  bishop.  In  the  natural 
course  of  things,  therefore,  all  Presbyterians,  Independents,  Bap- 
tists, and  Quakers  would,  like  the  inferior  animals,  cease  to  exist. 
But  Dodwell  was  far  too  good  a  churchman  to  let  off  dissenters 
so  easily.  He  informs  them  that,  as  they  have  had  an  oppor- 
tunity of  hearing  the  Gospel  preached,  and  might,  but  for  their 
own  perverseness,  have  received  episcopalian  baptism,  God  will, 
by  a  preternatural  act  of  power,  bestow  immortality  on  them  in 
order  that  they  may  be  tormented  for  ever  and  ever.* 

No  man  abhorred  the  growing  latitudinarianism  of  those 
times  more  than  Dodwell.  Yet  no  man  had  more  reason  to  re- 
joice in  it.  For,  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
a  speculator  who  had  dared  to  affirm  that  the  human  soul  is  by 
its  nature  mortal,  and  does,  in  the  great  majority  of  cases,  actu- 
ally die  with  the  body,  would  have  been  burned  alive  in  Smith- 
field.  Even  in  days  which  Dodwell  could  well  remember,  such 
heretics  as  himself  would  have  been  thought  fortunate  if  they 
escaped  with  life,  their  backs  flayed,  their  ears  clipped,  their 
noses  slit,  their  tongues  bored  through  with  red  hot  iron,  and 

ferent  Communions  is  known  to  me.  I  ought  to  say,  only  from  Brokesby's  copi- 
ous abstract.  That  Discourse  is  very  rare.  It  was  originally  printed  as  an  ap- 
pendage to  a  sermon  preached  by  Leslie.  When  Leslie  collected  his  works  he 
omitted  the  discourse,  probably  because  he  was  ashamed  of  it.  I  have  not  be^n 
able  to  lh;d  it  in  the  Library  of  the  British  Museum.  The  Treatise  on  the  Law- 
fulness of  Instrumental  Music  I  have  read  ;  and  incredibly  absurd  it  is. 

*  Dodwell  tells  us  that  the  title  of  the  work  in  which  he  fiist  promulgated  this 
theory  was  framed  with  great  care  and  precision.  I  will  therefore  transcribe  the 
title  page.  "  An  Epistolary  Discourse  proving  from  Scripture  and  the  Fivst 
Fathers  that  the  Soul  is  naturally  Mortal,  but  Immortalized  actually  by  the 
Pleasure  of  God  to  Punishment  or  to  Kewnrd,  by  its  Union  with  the  Divine  Bap- 
tismal Spirit,  wherein  is  proved  that  none  have  the  Power  of  giving  this  Divine 
Immortalizing  Spirit  since  the  Apostles  but  only  the  Bishops.  By  II.  Dodwell." 
Dr.  Clarke,  in  a  Letter  to  Dodwell  (1706),  says  that  this  Epistolary  Discourse  ia 
"  a  book  at  which  all  good  men  are  sorry,  and  all  profane  meii  rejoice." 


416  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

their  eyes  knocked  out  with  brickbats.  With  the  nonjurors, 
however,  the  author  of  this  theory  was  still  the  great  Mr.  Dod- 
well  ;  and  some,  who  thought  it  culpable  lenity  to  tolerate  a 
Presbyterian  meeting,  thought  it  at  the  same  time  gross  illiber- 
ality  to  blame  a  learned  and  pious  Jacobite  for  denying  a  doc- 
trine so  utterly  unimportant  in  a  religious  point  of  view  as  that 
of  the  immortality  of  the  soul.*. 

Two  other  nonjurors  deserve  special  mention,  less  on  ac- 
count of  their  abilities  and  learning,  than  on  account  of  their 
r.ire  integrity,  and  of  their  not  less  rare  candour.  These  were 
John  Kettlewell,  Rector  of  Coleshill,  and  John  Fitzwilliam, 
Canon  of  Windsor.  It  is  remarkable  that  both  these  men  had 
seen  much  of  Lord  Russell,  and  that  both,  though  differing 
from  him  in  political  opinions,  and  strongly  disapproving  the  part 
which  he  had  taken  in  the  Whig  plot,  had  thought  highly  of  his 
character,  and  had  been  sincere  mourners  for  his  death.  He 
had  sent  to  Kettlewell  an  affectionate  message  from  the  scaffold 
in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields.  Lady  Russell,  to  her  latest  day,  loved, 
trusted,  and  revered  Fitzwilliam,  \vho,-when  she  was  a  girl,  had 
baen  the  friend  of  her  father,  the  virtuous  Southampton.  The 
two  clergymen  agreed  in  refusing  to  swear  :  but  they,  from  that 
moment,  took  different  paths.  Kettlewell  was  one  of  the  most 
active  members  of  his  party  :  he  declined  no  drudgery  in  the 
common  cause,  provided  only  that  it  were  such  drudgery  as  did 
not  misbecome  an  honest  man  ;  and  he  defended  his  opinions  in 
several  tracts,  winch  give  a  much  higher  notion  of  his  sincerity 
than  of  his  judgment  or  acuteness.f  Fitzwilliam  thought  that 
he  had  done  enough  in  quitting  his  pleasant  dwelling  and  garden 
under  the  shndow  of  Saint  George's  Chapel,  and  in  betaking 
himself  with  his  books  to  a  small  lodging  in  an  attic.  lie  could 
not  with  a  safe  conscience  acknowledge  William  and  Mary  :  but 
he  did.  not  conceive  that  he  was  bound  to  be  always  stirring  up 
sedition  against  them  ;  and  he  passed  the  last  years  of  his  life, 
under  the  powerful  protection  of  the  House  of  Bedford,  in  iu- 
Eocent  and  studious  repose. $ 

*  See  Leslie's  Rehear  ala,  No.  £?6,  2S7. 

t  See  h's  works,  and  the  Vighly  curious  life  of  him  which  was  compiled  from 
the  papers  of  his  friends  Ilickes  and  Nelson. 

J  See  Fitzwilliam's  correspondence  with  Lady  Kussell,  and  his  evidence  on 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  417 

Among  the  less  distinguished  divines  who  forfeited  their 
benefices,  were  doubtless  many  good  men. :  but  it  is  certain  that 
the  moral  character  of  the  non jurors,  as  a  class,  did  not  stand 
high.  It  seems  hard  to  impute  laxity  of  principle  to  persons 
who  undoubtedly  made  a  great  sacrifice  to  principle.  And  yet 
experience  abundantly  proves  that  many  who  are  capable  of 
making  a  great  sacrifice,  when  their  blood  is  heated  by  conflict, 
and  wlfeii  the  public  eye  is  fixed  upon  them,  are  not  capable  of 
persevering  long  in  the  daily  practice  of  obscure  virtues.  It  is 
by  no  means  improbable  that  zealots  may  have  given  their 
lives  for  a  religion  which  had  never  effectually  restrained  their 
vindictive  or  their  licentious  passions.  We  learn  indeed  from 
fathers  of  the  highest  authority  that,  even  in  the  purest  ages  of 
the  Church,  some  confessors,  who  had  manfully  refused  to  save 
themselves  from  torments  and  death  by  throwing  frankincense 
on  the  altar  of  Jupiter,  afterwards  brought  scandal  on  the 
Christian  name  by  gross  fraud  and  debauchery.*  For  the  non- 
juring  divines  great  allowance  must  in  fairness  be  made.  They 
were  doubtless  in  a  most  trying  situation.  In  general,  a  schism, 
which  divides  a  religious  community,  divides  the  laity  as  well 
as  the  clergy.  The  seceding  pastors  therefore  carry  with  them 
a  large  part  of  their  flocks,  and  are  consequently  assured  of  a 
maintenance.  B.ut  the  schism  of  1689  scarcely  extended  be- 
yond the  clergy.  The  law*  required  the  rector  to  take  the 
oaths,  or  to  quit  his  living ;  but  no  oath,  no  acknowledgment  of 
the  title  of  the  new  King  and  Queen,  was  required  from  the 

the  trial  of  Ashton,  in  the  State  Trials.  The  only  work  which  Fitzwilliam,  as  far 
as  I  have  been  able  to  discover,  ever  published  was  a  sermon  on  the  Rye  House 
Plot,  preached  a  few  weeks  after  Russell's  execution.  There  are  some  sentences 
in  this  sermon  which  I  a  little  wonder  that  the  widow  and  the  family  forgave. 

*  Cyprian,  in  one  of  his  Epistles,  addresses  the  confessors  thus  :  "Quosdam 
audio  inttcere  nunierum  vestrum,  et  laudem  praecipui  nominis  prava  sua  couver- 
B.itione  destruere.  •  .  Cum  quanto  nominis  vestri  pudore  delinquitur  quando 
alius  aliquis  temulentus  et  lasciviens  demoratur  ;  alius  in  earn  patriam  mule 
extorris  est  regrediiur,  ut  deprehensus  non  jam  quasi  Christiaiius,  sed  quasi 
nocens  pereat."  He  uses  still  stronger  language  in  the  book  de  Unitate  Ec- 
clesiae  :  "Neque  enim  confessio  immunem  facit  ab  insidiis  diaboli,  aut  contra 
tentationes  et  pericula  et  incursus  atque  impetus  saeculares  adliuc  in  sseeulo  posi- 
tum  perpetua  securitate  defendit ;  cseterura  nunquamin  confessoribus  fraudes  et 
stupra  et  adulteria  postmoduiu  videremus,  quse  nuuc  iu  quibusdam  videutea 
Iiigeiniscimus  et  dolemus." 

VoL.IIL— 27. 


418  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

parishioner  as  a  qualification  for  attending  divine  service,  or 
for  receiving  the  Eucharist.  Not  one  in  fifty,  therefore,  of 
these  laymen  who  disapproved  of  the  Revolution  thought  him- 
self bound  to  quit  his  pew  in  the  old  church,  where  the  old 
liturgy  was  still  read,  and  where  the  old  vestments  were  still 
worn,  and  to  follow  the  ejected  priest  to  a  conventicle,  a  con- 
venticle, too,  which  was  not  protected  by  the  Toleration  Act. 
Thus  the  new  sect  was  a  sect  of  preachers  without  hearers  ;  and 
such  preachers  could  not  make  a  livelihood  by  preaching.  In 
London,  indeed,  and  in  some  other  large  towns,  those  vehement 
Jacobites,  whom  nothing  would  satisfy  but  to  hear  King  James 
and  the  Prince  of  Wales  prayed  for  by  name,  were  sufficiently 
numerous  to  make  up  a  few  small  congregations,  which  met 
secretly  and  under  constant  fear  of  the  constables,  in  rooms  so 
mean  that  the  meeting  houses  of  the  Puritan  dissenters  might 
by  comparison  be  called  palaces.  Even  Collier,  who  had  all 
the  qualities  which  attract  large  audiences,  was  reduced  to  be 
the  minister  of  a  little  knot  of  maleconten-ts,  whose  oratory  was 
on  a  second  floor  in  the  city.  But  the  nonjuring  clergymen 
who  were  able  to  obtain  even  a  pittance  by  officiating  at  such 
places  ware  very  few.  Of  the  rest  some  had  independent 
means  :  some  lived  by  literature  :  one  or  two  practised  physic. 
Thomas  Wagstaffe,  for  example,  who  had  been  Chancellor  of 
Lichfield,  had  many  patients,  and  made  himself  conspicuous  by 
always  visiting  them  in  full  canonicals.*  But  these  were  ex- 
ceptions. Industrious  poverty  is  a  state  by  no  means  unfa- 
vourable to  virtue  :  but  it  is  dangerous  to  be  at  once  poor  and 
idle ;  and  most  of  the  clergymen  who  had  refused  to  swear 
found  themselves  thrown  on  the  world  with  nothing  to  eat  and 
with  nothing  to  do.  They  naturally  became  beggars  and  loun- 
gers. Considering  themselves  as  martyrs  suffering  in  a  public 
cause,  they  were  not  ashamed  to  ask  any  good  churchman  for  a 
guinea.  Most  of  them  passed  their  lives  in  running  about  from 
one  Tory  coffeehouse  to  another,  abusing  the  Dutch,  hearing 

*  Much  curious  information  about  the  nonjurors  will  be  found  in  the  Bio- 
graphical Memoirs  of  William  Bowyer,  Printer,  which  forms  the  first  volume  of 
Nichols's  Literary  Anecdotes  of  the  eighteenth  century.  A  specimen  of  Wag- 
stalfe's  prescriptions  is  in  the  Bodleian  Library. 


•WILLIAM    AND    MART.  419 

and  spreading  reports  that  within,  a  month  His  Majesty  would 
certainly  be  on  English  ground,  and  wondering  who  would  have 
Salisbury  when  Burnet  was  hanged.  During  the  session  of 
Parliament  the  lobbies  and  the  Court  of  Requests  were  crowded 
with  deprived  parsons,  asking  who  was  up,  and  what  the  num- 
bers were  on  the  last  division.  Many  of  the  ejected  divines  became 
domesticated,  as  chaplains,  tutors,  and  spiritual  directors,  in  the 
houses  of  opulent  Jacobites.  In  a  situation  of  this  kind,  a  raan 
of  pure  and  exalted  character,  such  a  man  as  Ken  was  among  the 
noujurors,  and  Watts  among  the  nonconformists,  may  preserve 
his  dignity,  and  may  much  more  than  repay  by  his  example 
and  his  Instructions  the  benefits  which  he  receives.  But  to  a 
person  whose  virtue  is  not  high  toned  this  way  of  life  is  full  of 
peril.  If  he  is  of  a  quiet  disposition,  he  is  in  danger  of  sinking 
into  a  servile,  sensual,  drowsy  parasite.  If  he  is  of  an  active 
and  aspiring  nature,  it  may  be  feared  that  he  will  become  ex- 
pert in  those  bad  arts  by  which  more  easily  than  by  faithful 
service,  retainers  make  themselves  agreeable  or  formidable.  To 
discover  the  weak  side  of  every  character,  to  flatter  every  pas- 
sion and  prejudice,  to  sow  discord  and  jealousy  where  love  and 
confidence  ought  to  exist,  to  watch  the  moment  of  indiscreet 
openness  for  the  purpose  of  extracting  secrets  important  to  the 
prosperity  and  honour  of  families,  such  are  the  practices  by 
which  keen  and  restless  spirits  have  too  often  avenged  them- 
selves for  the  humiliation  of  dependence.  The  public  voice 
loudly  accused  many  nonjurors  of  requiting  the  hospitality  of 
their  benefactors  with  villany  as  black  as  that  of  the  hypocrite 
depicted  in  the  masterpiece  of  Moliere.  Indeed  when  Gibber 
iMidertook  to  adapt  that  noble  comedy  to  the  English  stage, 
he  made  his  Tartuffe  a  nonjuror :  and  Johnson,  who  cannot  be 
supposed  to  have  been  prejudiced  against  the  nonjurors,  frankly 
owned  that  Gibber  had  done  them  no  wrong.* 

*  Cibber's  play,  as  Gibber  wrote  it,  ceased  to  be  popular  when  the  Jacobites 
ceased  to  be  formidable,  and  is  now  known  only  to  the  curious.  In  1768,  Bicker- 
staffe  altered  it  into  the  Hypocrite,  and  substituted  Dr.  Cantwell,  the  Methodist, 
for  Dr.  Wolfe,  the  Nonjuror.  "  1  do  not  think,"  said  Johnson,  "  the  character  o£ 
the  Hypocrite  justly  applicable  to  the  Methodists  ;  but  it  was  very  applicable  to 
the  nonjurors."  Boswell  asked  him  if  it  were  true  that  the  nonjuring  clergymen 
intrigued  with  the  wives  of  their  patrons.  "  I  ain  afruid,"  said  Johnson,  "  many 


420  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  schism  caused  by  the  oaths 
would  have  been  far  more  formidable,  if,  at  this  crisis,  any  ex- 
tensive change  had  been  made  in  the  government  or  in  the 
ceremonial  of  the  Established  Church.  It  is  a  highly  instructive 
fact  that  those  enlightened  and  tolerant  divines  who  most 
ardently  desired  such  a  change  saw  reason,  not  long  afterwards, 
to  be  thankful  that  their  favorite  project  had  failed. 

Whigs  and  Tories  had  in  the  late  Session  combined  to  get 
rid  of  Nottingham's  Comprehension  Bill  by  voting  an  address 
which  requested  the  King  to  refer  the  whole  subject  to  the 
Convocation.  Burnet  foresaw  the  effect  of  this  vote.  The 
whole  scheme,  he  said,  was  utterly  ruined.*  Many  of  his 
friends  however,  thought  differently ;  and  among  these  was 
Tillotson.  Of  all  the  members  of  the  Low  Church  party 
Tillotson  stood  highest  in  general  estimation.  As  a  preacher 
he  was  thought  by  his  contemporaries  to  have  surpassed  all 
rivals  living  or  dead.  Posterity  has  reversed  this  judgment. 
Yet  Tillotsou  still  keeps  his  place  as  a  legitimate  English 
classic.  His  highest  flights  were  indeed  far  below  those  of 
Taylor,  of  Barrow,  and  of  South  ;  but  his  oratory  was  more 
correct  and  equable  than  theirs.  No  quaint  conceits,  no 
pedantic  quotations  from  Talmudists  and  scholiasts,  no  mean 
images,  buffoon  stories,  scurrilous  invectives,  ever  marred  the 

O 

Affect  of  his  grave  and  temperate  discourses.  His  reasoning 
was  just  sufficiently  profound  and  sufficiently  refined  to  be 

<>f  them  did."  This  conversation  took  place  on  the  27th  of  March,  1775.  It  was 
i  ict  merely  in  careless  talk  that  Johnson  expressed  an  unfavourable  opinion  of 
the  nonjurors.  In  his  Life  of  Fenton.  who  was  a  nonjuror,  are  these  remarkable 
words  :  "  It  must  be  remembered  that  he  kept  his  name  unsullied,  and  never 
suffered  himself  to  be  reduced,  like  too  many  of  the  snme  sect,  to  mean  arts  and 
dishonourable  shifts."  See  the  character  of  a  Jacobite,  1690.  Even  in  Kettle- 
well's  Life,  compiled  from  the  papers  of  his  friends  Hickes  and  Kelson,  will  be 
found  admissions  which  show  that,  very  soon  after  the  schism,  some  of  the  non- 
juring  clergy  fell  into  habits  of  idleness,  dependence,  and  mendicancy,  which 
lowered  the  character  of  the  whole  party.  "  Several  undeserving  persons,  who 
are  always  the  most  confident,  by  their  going  up  and  down,  did  much  prejudice 
to  the  truly  deserving,  whose  modesty  would  not  suffer  them  to  solicit  for  them- 
selves  Mr.  Kettlewell  was  also  very  sensible  that  some  of  his 

brethren  spent  too  much  of  their  time  in  places  of  concourse  and  news,  by 
depending  for  their  subsistence  upon  those  whom  they  there  got  acquainted 
with." 

*  Reresby's  Memoirs,  344. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  421 

followed  by  a  popular  audience  with  that  slight  degree  of  in- 
tellectual exertion  which  is  a  pleasure.  His  style  is  not  brili 
liant;  but  it  is  pure,  transparently  clear,  and  equally  free  from 
the  levity  and  from  the  stiffness  which  disfigure  the  sermons  of 
some  eminent  divines  of  the  seventeenth  century.  He  is 
always  serious  :  yet  there  is  about  his  manner  a  certain  graceful 
ease  which  marks  him  as  a  man  who  knows  the  world,  who 
has  lived  in  populous  cities  and  in  splendid  courts,  and  who  has 
conversed,  not  only  with  books,  but  with  lawyers  and  merchants, 
wits  and  beauties,  statesmen  and  princes.  The  greatest  charm 
of  his  compositions,  however,  is  derived  from  the  benignity  and 
candour  which  appear  in  every  line,  and  which  shone  forth  not 
less  conspicuously  in  his  life  than  in  his  writings. 

As  a  theologian,  Tillotson  was  certainly  not  less  latitudi- 
narian  than  Burnet.  Yet  many  of  those  clergymen  to  whom 
Burnet  was  an  object  of  implacable  aversion,  spoke  of  Tillot; 
son  with  tenderness  and  respect.  It  is  therefore  not  strange 
that  the  two  friends  should  have  formed  different  estimates  of 
the  temper  of  the  priesthood,  and  should  have  expected  dif- 
ferent results  from  the  meeting  of  the  Convocation.  Tillotson 
was  not  displeased  with  the  vote  of  the  Commons.  He  con- 
ceived that  changes  made  in  religious  institutions  by  mere  secu- 
lar authority  might  disgust  many  churchmen,  who  would  yet  be 
perfectly  willing  to  vote,  in  an  ecclesiastical  synod,  for  changes 
more  extensive  still ;  and  his  opinion  had  great  weight  with 
the  King.*  It  was  resolved  that  the  Convocation  should  meet 
at  the  beginning  of  the  next  session  of  Parliament,  and  that  in 
the  meantime  a  commission  should  issue  empowering  some 
eminent  divines  to  examine  the  Liturgy,  the  canons,  and  the 
whole  system  of  jurisprudence  administered  by  the  Courts 
Christian,  and  to  report  on  the  alterations  which  it  might  be 
desirable  to  make.t 

Most  of  the  Bishops  who  had  taken  the  oaths  were  in  this 
commission ;  and  with  them  were  joined  twenty  priests  of 
great  note.  Of  the  twenty  Tillotson  was  the  most  important : 

*  Birch's  Life  of  Tillotson. 

t  See  the  Discourse  concerning  the  Ecclesiastical  Commission,  1689. 


422  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

for  he  was  known  to  speak  the  sense  both  of  the  King  and  of 
the  Queen.  Among  those  Commissioners  who  looked  up  to 
Tillotson  as  their  chief  were  Stillingfleet,  Dean  of  St.  Paul's, 
Sharp,  Dean  of  Norwich,  Patrick,  Dean  of  Peterborough, 
Tenison,  Rector  of  Saint  Martin's,  and  Fowler,  to  whose 
judicious  firmness  was. chiefly  to  be  ascribed  the  determi- 
nation of  the  London  clergy  not  to  read  the  Declaration  of 
Indulgence. 

With  such  men  as  those  who  have  been  named  were  min- 
gled some  divines  who  belonged  to  the  High  Church  party. 
Conspicuous  among  these  were  two  of  the  rulers  of  Oxford, 
Aldrich  and  Jane.  Aldrich  had  recently  been  appointed  Dean 
of  Christchurch,  in  the  room  of  the  Papist  Massey,  whom  James 
had,  in  direct  violation  of  the  laws,  placed  at  the  head  of  that 
great  college.  The  new  Dean  was  a  polite,  though  not  a  pro- 
•fcund  scholar,  and  a  jovial,  hospitable  gentleman.  He  was  the 
author  of  some  theological  tracts  which  have  long  been  forgotten 
and  of  a  compendium  of  logic  which  is  still  used  :  but  the  best 
works  which  he  has  bequeathed  to  posterity  are  his  catches. 
Jane,  the  King's  Professor  of  Divinity,  was  a  graver  but  a  less 
estimable  man.  He  had  borne  the  chief  part  in  framing  that 
decree  by  which  his  University  ordered  the  works  of  Milton 
and  Buchanan  to  be  publicly  burned  in  the  schools.  A  few 
years  later,  irritated  and  alarmed  by  the  persecution  of  the  Bish- 
ops and  by  the  .confiscation  of  the  revenues  of  Magdalene  Col- 
lege, he  had  renounced  the  doctrine  of  nonresistance,  had  re- 
paired to  the  head  quarters  of  the  Prince  of  Orange,  and  had  as- 
sured His  Highness  that  Oxford  would  willingly  coin  her  plate 
for  the  support  of  the  war  against  her  oppressor.  During  a 
short  time  Jane  was  generally  considered  as  a  Whig,  and 
was  sharply  lampooned  by  some  of  his  old  allies.  He  was  so 
unfortunate  as  to  have  a  name  which  was  an  excellent  mark 
for  the  learned  punsters  of  his  University.  Several  epigrams 
were  written  on  the  doublefaced  Janus,  who,  having  got  a 
professorship  by  looking  one  way,  now  hoped  to  get  a  bishopric 
by  looking  another.  That  he  hoped  to  get  a  bishopric  was 
perfectly  true.  He  demanded  the  see  of  Exeter  as  a  reward 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  423 

due  to  his  services.  He  was  refused :  the  refusal  convinced 
him  that  the  Church  had  as  much  to  apprehend  from  Latitu- 
dinarianism  as  from  Popery ;  and  he  speedily  became  a  Tory 
again.* 

Early  in  October  the  Commissioners  assembled  in  the 
Jerusalem  Chamber.  At  their  first  meeting  they  determined  to 
propose  that,  in  the  public  services  of  the  Church,  lessons  taken 
from  the  canonical  books  of  Scripture  should  be  substituted  for 
the  lessons  taken  from  the  Apocrypha,  f  At  the  second  meet- 
ing a  strange  question  was  raised  by  the  very  last  person  who 
ought  to  have  raised  it.  Sprat,  Bishop  of  Rochester,  had, 
without  any  scruple,  sate,  during  two  years,  in  the  uncons- 
titutional tribunal  which  had,  in  the  late  reign,  oppressed  and 
pillaged  the  Church  of  which  he  was  a  ruler.  But  he  had 
now  become  scrupulous,  and  was  not  ashamed,  after  acting  with- 
out hesitation  under  King  James's  commission,  to  express  a  doubt 
whether  King  William's  commission  were  legal.  To  a  plain 
understanding  the  doubt  seems  to  be  childish.  King  William's 
commission  gave  power  neither  to  make  laws  nor  to  administer 
laws,  but  simply  to  enquire  and  to  report.  Even  without  a 
royal  commission  Tillotson,  Patrick,  and  Stillingfleet  might, 
with  perfect  propriety,  have  met  to  discuss  the  state  and  pros- 
pects of  the  Church,  and  to  consider  whether  it  would  or  would 
not  be  desirable  to  make  some  concession  to  the  dissenters.  And 
how  could  it  be  a  cjime  for  subjects  to  do  at  the  request  of  their 
Sovereign  that  which  it  would  have  been  innocent  and  laudable 
to  do  without  any  such  request  ?  Sprat,  however,  was  seconded 
by  Jane.  There  was  a  sharp  altercation ;  and  Lloyd,  Bishop  of 
Saint  Asaph,  who,  with  many  good  qualities,  had  an  irritable 
temper,  was  provoked  into  saying  something  about  spies.  Sprat 
withdrew  and  came  no  more.  His  example  was  soon  followed 
by  Jane  and  Aldrich.J  The  Commissioners  proceeded  to  take 

*  Birch's  Life  of  Tillotson  ;  Life  of  Prideaux ;  Gentleman's  Magazine  for 
June  and  July  1745. 

t  Diary  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  Commissioners  taken  by  Dr.  Williams, 
afterwards  Bishop  of  Chichester,  one  of  the  Commissioners,  every  night  after  he 
went  home  from  the  several  meetings.  This  most  curious  Diary  was  printed  by 
order  of  the  House  of  Commons  in  18&L 

t  Willianis's  Diary. 


424  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

into  consideration  the  question  of  the  posture  at  the  Eucharist. 
It.-was  determined  to  recommend  that  a  communicant, who.  after 
conference  with  his  minister,  should  declare  that  he  could  not 
conscientiously  receive  the  bread  and  wine  kneeling,  might 
receive  them  sitting.  Mew,  Bishop  of  Winchester,  an  honest 
man,  but  illiterate,  weak  even  in  his  best  days,  and  now  fast 
sinking  into  dotage,  protested  against  this  concession,  and  with- 
drew from  the  assembly.  The  other  members  continued  to  apply 
themselves  vigorously  to  their  task  ;  and  no  more  secessions  took 
place,  though  there  were  great  differences  of  opinion,  and  though 
the  debates  were  sometimes  warm.  The  highest  churchmen 
who  still  remained  were  Doctor  William  Beveridge,  Archdeacon 
of  Colchester,  who  many  years  later  became  Bishop  of  Saint 
Asaph,  and  Doctor  John  Scott,  the  same  who  had  prayed  by 
the  deathbed  of-  Jeffreys.  The  most  active  among  the  Latitu- 
dinarians  appear  to  have  been  Burnet,  Fowler,  and  Tenison. 

The  baptismal  service  was  repeatedly  discussed.  As  to 
matter  of  form  the  Commissioners  were  disposed  to  be  indulgent. 
They  were  generally  willing  to  admit  infants  into  the  Church 
without  sponsors  and  without  the  sign  of  the  cross.  But  the 
majority,  after  much  debate,  steadily  refused  to  soften  down  or 
explain  away  those  words  which,  to  all  minds  not  sophisticated, 
appear  to  assert  the  regenerating  virtue  of  the  sacrament.* 

As  to  the  surplice,  the  Commisioners  determined  to  recom- 
mend that  a  large  discretion  should  be  left  to  the  Bishops.  Ex- 
pedients were  devised  by  which  a  person  who  had  received 
Presbyterian  ordination  might,  without  admitting,  either  ex- 
pressly or  by  implication,  the"  invalidity  of  that  ordination, 
become  a  minister  of  the  Church  of  England. f 

The  ecclesiastical  calendar  was  carefully  revised.  The  great 
festivals  were  retained.  But  it  was  not  thought  desirable  that 
Saint  Valentine,  Saint  Chad,  Saint  Swithin,  Saint  Edward 
King  of  the  West  Saxons,  Saint  Dunstan,  and  Saint  Alphage, 
should  share  the  honours  of  Saint  John  and  Saint  Paul ;  or 
that  the  Church  should  appear  to  class  the  ridiculous  fable  of 
the  discovery  of  the  cross  with  facts  so  awfully  important  as  the 
*  Williams's  Diary.  t  Ibid. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  425 

Nativity,  the  Passion,  the  Resurrection  and  the  Ascension  of 
her  Lord.* 

The  Athanasian  Creed  caused  much  perplexity.  Most  of 
the  Commissioners  were  equally  unwilling  to  give  up  the 
doctrinal  clauses  and  to  retain  the  damnatory  clauses. 
Burnet,  Fowler,  and  Tillotson  were  desirous  to  strike  this 
famous  symbol  out  of  the  Liturgy  altogether.  Burnet  brought 
forward  one  argument,  which  to  himself  probably  did  not 
appear  to  have  much  weight,  but  which  was  admirably  calcu- 
lated to  perplex  his  opponents,  Beveridge  and  Scott.  The 
Council  of  Ephesus  had  always  been  reverenced  by  Anglican 
divines  as  a  synod  which  had  truly  represented  the  whole  body 
of  the  faithful,  and  which  had  been  divinely  guided  in  the  way 
of  truth.  The  voice  of  that  Council  was  the  voice  of  the  Holy 
Catholic  and  Apostolic  Church,  not  yet  corrupted  by  supersti- 
tion, or  rent  asunder  by  schism.  During  more  than  twelve  cen- 
turies the  world  had  not  seen  an  ecclesiastical  assembly  which 
had  an  equal  claim  to  the  respect  of  believers.  The  Council  of 
Ephesus  had,  in  the  plainest  terms,  and  under  the  most 
terrible  penalties,  forbidden  Christians  to  frame  or  to  impose 
on  their  brethren  any  creed  other  than  the  creed  settled  by  the 
Nicene  Fathers.  It  should  seem  therefore  that,  if  the  Council 
of  Ephesus  was  really  under  the  direction  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
whoever  uses  the  Athanasian  Creed  must,  in  the  very  act  of 
uttering  an  anathema  against  his  neighbours,  bring  down  an 
anathema  on  his  own  head.f  In  spite  of  the  authority  of  the 

*  See  the  alterations  in  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  prepared  by  the  Eoyal 
Commissioners  for  the  revision  of  the  Liturgy  in  1689,  and  printed  by  order  of 
the  House  of  Commons  in  1854. 

t  It  is  difficult  to  conceive  stronger  or  clearer  language  than  that  used  by  the 
Council.  TOVTUV  roivvv  avayvucHevruv,  uptGt'v  ij  ayia  <7i>i>oJof,  erepav 
TcicTiv  [iridevl  e^elvai  irpoaqtfpeiv,  ij-yovv  ovyyi>d<j>eiv,  if  cvvrifievai,  Trapa  TT/V 
optatitlaav  irapa  iui>  ayiuv  Trartpwv  TUV  ki>  ry  Nmasuv  cwf'Mlovruv  avv 
d-yi(f)  rrt-eiyzarr  rovq  6e  rofytGJvra?  rj  ffwriOevai  iricriv  eTepav,  ijyovv 
irpoKo/ui&iv,  f)  Trpoa<j>Epeiv  role  kQ&ovaiv  eirurrpeQeiv  elg  emyvuatv  TTJ<; 
afydeiaf,  i]  el-  'E//.J7Wcr//oi),  57  f£  'Iov6aia/j.vv,  if  ef  aipiaeuf,  olaadr/iroroi'v, 
TOVTOVC,  tl  [i£v  fiev  i^iffKOTroi  T]  K^TfpiKol,  aMorpiovs  elvat  rot>f  tT 
rijc  e irtGKOTryc;,  KOI  roi'f  Kl.qpiKoi'S  TOV  K^pov,  el  Je  Aa'iKol  elev,  a 
— Concil-  Ephcs.  Actio  VI. 


426  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

Ephesian  Fathers,  the  majority  of  the  Commissioners  determined 
to  leave  the  Athanasian  Creed  in  the  Prayer  Book  :  but  they 
proposed  to  add  a  rubric  drawn  up  by  Stillingfleet,  which 
declared  that  the  damnatory  clauses  were  to  be  understood  to 
apply  only  to  such  as  obstinately  denied  the  substance  of  the 
Christian  Faith.  Obstinacy  is  of  the  nature  of  moral  pravity,  and 
is  not  imputable  to  a  candid  and  modest  enquirer  who,  from  some 
defect  or  malformation  of  the  intellect,  is  mistaken  as  to  the 
comparative  weight  of  opposite  arguments  or  testimonies.  Or- 
thodox believers  were  therefore  permitted  to  hope  that  the 
heretic  who  had  honestly  and  humbly  sought  for  truth  would 
not  be  everlastingly  punished  for  having  failed  to  find  it.* 

Tenison  was  entrusted  with  the  business  of  examining  the 
Liturgy,  and  of  collecting  all  those  expressions  to  which  objec- 
tions had  been  made,  either  by  theological  or  by  literary  critics. 
It  was  determined  to  remove  some  obvious  blemishes.  And  it 
would  have  been  wise  in  the  Commissioners  to  stop  here.  Un- 
fortunately they  determined  to  rewrite  a  great  part  of  the 
Prayer  Book.  It  was  a  bold  undertaking;  for  in  general  the 
style  of  that  volume  is  such  as  cannot  be  improved.  The  Eng- 
lish Liturgy  indeed  gains  by  being  compared  even  with  those 
fine  ancient  Liturgies  from  which  it  is  to  a  great  extent  taken. 
The  essential  qualities  of  devotional  eloquence,  conciseness, 
majestic  simplicity,  pathetic  earnestness  of  supplication,  sobered 
by  a  profound  reverence,  are  common  between  the  translations 
and  the  originals.  But  in  the  subordinate  graces  of  diction  the 
originals  must  be  allowed  to  be  far  inferior  to  the  translations. 
And  the  reason  is  obvious.  The  technical  phraseology  of 
Christianity  did  not  become  a  part  of  the  Latin  language  till 
that  language  had  passed  the  age  of  maturity  and  was  sinking 
into  barbarism.  But  the  technical  phraseology  of  Christianity 
was  found  in  the  Anglosaxon  and  in  the  Norm-an  French,  long 
before  the  union  of  those  two  dialects  had  produced  a  third 
dialect  superior  to  either.  The  Latin  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
services,  therefore,  is  Latin  in  the  last  stage  of  decay.  The  Eng- 
lish of  our  services  is  English  in  all  the  vigour  and  suppleness  of 
*  Williams's  Diary  ;  Alterations  in  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer. 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  427 

early  youth.  To  the  great  Latin  writers,  to  Terence  and  Lucre- 
tius, to  Cicero  and  Caesar,  to  Tacitus  and  Quinctilian,  the  noblest 
compositions  of  Ambrose  and  Gregory  would  have  seemed  to 
be,  not  merely  bad  writing,  but  senseless  gibberish.*  The 
diction  of  our  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  on  the  other  hand,  has 
directly  or  indirectly  contributed  to  form  the  diction  of  almost 
every  great  English  writer,  and  has  extorted  the  admiration  of 
the  most  accomplished  infidels  and  of  the  most  accomplished 
nonconformists,  of  such  men  as  David  Hume  and  Robert  Hall. 

The  style  of  the  Liturgy,  however,  did  not  satisfy  the 
Doctors  of  the  Jerusalem  Chamber.  They  voted  the  Collects 
too  short  and  too  dry ;  and  Patrick  was  entrusted  with  the 
duty  of  expanding  and  ornamenting  them.  In  one  respect,  at 
least,  the  choice  seems  to  have  been  unexceptionable ;  for,  if 
we  judge  by  the  way  in  which  Patrick  paraphrased  the  most 
sublime  Hebrew  poetry,  we  shall  probably  be  of  opinion  that, 
whether  he  was  or  was  not  qualified  to  make  the  collects 
better,  no  man  that  ever  lived  was  more  competent  to  make  them 
longer.f 

Jt  mattered  little,  however,  whether  the  recommendations 
of  the  Commission  were  good  or  bad.  They  were  all  doomed 
before  they  were  known.  The  writs  summoning  the  Convoca- 

*  It  is  curious  to  consider  how  those  great  mnsters  of  the  Latin  tongue  who 
nsed  to  sup  with  Maecenas  and  Pollio  would  have  been  perplexed  by  "Tibi 
Cherubim  et  Seraphim  incessabili  voce  proclamant,  Sanctus,  Sanctus,  Sanctus, 
Itominus  Deus  Sabaoth  ;"  or  by  "  Ideo  cum  angelis  et  archangelis,  cum  thronis 
et  dominationibus." 

t  I  will  give  two  specimens  of  Patrick's  workmanship.  "  Ho  maketh  me," 
says  David,  "  to  lie  down  in  green  pastures  :  he  leadeth  me  beside  the  still 
waters."  Patrick's  version  is  as  follows  :  "For  as  a  good  shepherd  leads  his 
ehcep  in  the  violent  heat  to  shady  places,  where  they  may  lie  down  and  feed  (not 
in  parched,  hut)  in  fresh  and  green  pastures,  and  in  the  evening  leads  them  (not 
to  mnddy  and  troubled  waters,  hut)  to  pure  and  quiet  streams;  so  hath  he  already 
made  a  fair  and  plentiful  provision  for  me,  which  1  enjoy  in  peace  wiihout  any 
disturbance." 

In  the  Song  of  Solomon  is  an  exquisitely  beautiful  verse.  "  I  charge  you,  O 
daughters  of  Jerusalem,  if  ye  find  my  beloved,  that  ye  tell  him  that  I  am  sick  of 
lovo."  Patrick's  version  runs  thus  :  "  So  I  turned  myself  to  those  of  my  neigh- 
bours and  familiar  acquaintance  who  were  awakened  by  my  cries  to  come  and 
pee  what  the  matter  was  ;  and  conjured  them,  as  they  would  answer  it  to  God, 
that,  if  they  met  with  my  beloved,  they  would  let  him  know — What  shall  I  say? — 
What  shall  I  desire  you  to  tell  him  but  that  I  do  not  enjoy  myself  now  that  I 
want  his  company,  nor  can  be  well  till  I  recover  his  love  again  ?  " 


428  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

tion  of  the  Province  of  Canterbury  had  been  issued ;  and  the 
clergy  were  everywhere  in  a  state  of  violent  excitement.  They 
had  just  taken  the  oaths,  and  were  smarting  from  the  earnest 
reproofs  of  nonjurors,  from  the  insolent  taunts  of  Whigs,  and 
often  undoubtedly  from  the  stings  of  remorse.  The  announce- 
ment that  a  Convocation  was  to  sit  for  the  purpose  of  delibera- 
ting on  a  plan  of  comprehension  roused  all  the  strongest  pas- 
sions of  the  priest  who  had  just  complied  with  the  law,  and  was 
ill  satisfied  or  half  satisfied  with  himself  for  complying.,  He 
had  an  opportunity  of  contributing  to  defeat  a  favourite  scheme 
of  that  government  which  had  exacted  from  him,  under  severe 
penalties,  a  submission  not  easily  to  be  reconciled  to  his 
conscience  or  his  pride.  He  had  an  opportunity  of  sig- 
nalising his  zeal  for  that  Church  whose  characteristic  doc- 
trines he  had  been  accused  of  deserting  for  lucre.  She  was 
now,  he  conceived,  threatened  by  a  danger  as  great  as  that  of 
the  preceding  year.  The  Latitudinarians  of  1689  were  not  less 
eager  to  humble  and  to  ruin  her  than  the  Jesuits  of  1688  had 
been.  The  Toleration  Act  had  done  for  the  Dissenters  quite 
as  much  as  was  compatible  with  her  dignity  and  security ;  and 
nothing  more  ought  to  be  conceded,  not  the  hem  of  one  of  her 
vestments,  not  an  epithet  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  her 
Liturgy.  All  the  reproaches  which  had  been  thrown  on  the 
ecclesiastical  commission  of  James  were  transferred  to  the  ecclesi- 
astical commission  of  William.  The  two  commissions  indeed 
had  nothing  but  the  name  in  common.  But  the  name  was 
associated  with  illegality  and  oppression,  with  the  violation  of 
dwellings  and  the  confiscation  of  freeholds,  and  was  therefore 
assiduously  sounded  with  no  small  effect  by  the  tougnes  of  the 
spiteful  in  the  ears  of  the  ignorant. 

The  King  too,  it  was  said,  was  not  sound.  He  conformed 
indeed  to  the  established  worship  ;  but  his  was  a  local  and 
occasional  conformity.  For  some  ceremonies  to  which  High 
Churchmen  were  attached  he  had  a  distaste  which  he  was  at  no 
pains  to  conceal.  One  of  his  first  acts  had  been  to  give  orders 
that  in  his  private  chapel  the  service  should  be  said  instead  of 
being  sung ;  and  this  arrangement,  though  warranted  by  the 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  429 

rubric,  caused  much  murmuring.*  It  was  known  that  he  was 
so  profane  as  to  sneer  at  a  practice  which  had  been  sanctioned 
by  high  ecclesiastical  authority,  the  practice  of  touching  for  the 
scrofula.  This  ceremony  had  come  down  almost  unaltered 
from  the  darkest  of  the  dark  ages  to  the  time  of  Newton 
and  Locke.  The  Stuarts  frequently  dispensed  the  healing 
influences  in  the  Banqueting  House.  The  days  on  which 
this  miracle  was  to  be  wrought  were  fixed  at  sittings  of  the 
Privy  Council,  and  were  solemnly  notified  by  the  clergy  in  all 
the  parish  churches  of  the  realm. f  When  the  appointed  time 
came,  several  divines  in  full  canonicals  stood  round  the  canopy 
of  state.  The  surgeon  of  the  royal  household  introduced  the 
sick.  A  passage  from  the  sixteenth  chapter  of  the  Gospel  of 
Saint  Mark  was  read.  When  the  words,  "  They  shall  lay  their 
hands  on  the  sick,  and  they  shall  recover,"  had  been  pronounced, 
th°re  was  a  pause  ;  and  one  of  the  sick  was  brought  up  to  the 
King.  His  Majesty  stroked  the  ulcers  and  swellings,  and  hung 
round  the  patient's  neck  a  white  riband  to  which  was  fastened  a 
gold  coin.  The  other  sufferers  were  then  led  up  in  succession  ; 
and,  as  each  was  touched,  the  chaplain  repeated  the  incantation, 
"  They  shall  lay  their  hands  on  the  sick,  and  they  shall  re- 
cover." Then  came  the  epistle,  prayers,  autiphonies,  and  a 
benediction.  The  service  may  still  be  found  in  the  prayer  books 
of  the  reign  of  Anne.  Indeed  it  was  not  till  some  time  after 
the  accession  of  George  the  First  that  the  University  of  Ox- 
ford ceased  to  reprint  the  Office  of  Healing  together  with  the 
Liturgy.  Theologians  of  eminent  learning,  ability,  and  virtue 
gave  the  sanction  of  their  authority  to  this  mummery  ;  $  and 
what  is  stranger  still,  medical  men  of  high  note  believed,  or  af- 

•  William's  dislike  of  the  Cathedral  service  is  sarcastically  noticed  by  Leslie 
in  the  Rehearsal,  No  7.  See  also  a  Letter  from  a  Member  of  the  Hoiiee  of  Com- 
mons to  his  Friend  in  the  Country.  1689,  and  Bisset's  Modern  Fanatic,  1710. 

t  Si!e  the  Order  in  Council  of  Jan  9. 1683. 

t  See  Collier's  Desertion  discussed,  1689.  Thomas  Carte,  who  was  a  disciple, 
and.  at  one  time,  an  assistant,  of  Collier,  inserted,  so  late  as  the  year  1747.  in  a 
bulky  History  of  England,  an  exquisitely  absurd  note,  in  which  he  assured  the 
world  that,  to  his  certain  knowledge,  the  Pretender  had  cured  the  scrofula,  and 
very  gravely  inferred  that  the  healing  virtue  was  transmitted  by  inheritance,  and 
was  quite  independent  of  a.iy  unction.  See  Carte's  History  of  England,  vol.  i 
page  291. 


430  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

fected  to  believe,  in  the  balsamic  virtues  of  the  royal  hand.  We 
must  suppose  that  every  surgeon  who  attended  Charles  the 
Second  was  a  man  of  high  repute  for  skill ;  and  more  than  one 
of  the  surgeons  who  attended  Charles  the  Second  has  left  us  a 
solemn  profession  of  faith  in  the  King's  miraculous  power.  One 
of  them  is  not  ashamed  to  tell  us  that  the  gift  was  communica- 
ted by  the  unction  administered  at  the  coronation  ;  that  the  cures 
were  so  numerous  and  sometimes  so  rapid  that  they  could  not  be 
attributed  to  any  natural  cause  ;  that  the  failures  were  to  be  as- 
cribed to  want  of  faith  on  the  part  of  the  patients  ;  that  Charles 
once  handled  a  scrofulous  Quaker  and  made  him  a  healthy  man 
and  a  sound  Churchman  in  a  moment ;  that,  if  those  who  had 
been  healed  lost  or  sold  the  piece  of  gold  which  had  been  hung 
round  their  necks,  the  ulcers  broke  forth  again,  and  could  be 
removed  only  by  a  second  touch  and  a  second  talisman.  We 
cannot  wonder  that,  when  men  of  science  gravely  repeated 
such  nonsense,  the  vulgar  should  have  believed  it.  Still  less 
can  we  wonder  that  wretches  tortured  by  a  disease  over  which 
natural  remedies  had  no  power  should  have  eagerly  drunk  in  tales 
of  preternatural  cures :  for  nothing  is  so  credulous  as  misery. 
The  crowds  which  repaired  to  the  palace  on  the  days  of  healing 
were  immense.  Charles  the  Second,  in  the  course  of  his  reign, 
touched  near  a  hundred  thousand  persons.  The  number  seems 
to  have  increased  or  diminished  as  the  king's  popularity  rose 
or  fell.  During  that  Tory  reaction  which  followed  the  dissolu- 
tion of  the  Oxford  Parliament,  the  press  to  get  near  him  was 
terrific.  In  1682,  he  performed  the  rite  eight  thousand  five 
hundred  times.  In  1G84,  the  throng  was  such  that  six  or  seven 
of  the  sick  were  trampled  to  death.  James,  in  one  of  his  pro- 
gresses, touched  eight  hundred  persons  in  the  choir  of  the 
Cathedral  of  Chester.  The  expense  of  the  ceremony  was  little 
less  than  ten  thousand  pounds  a  year,  and  would  have  been 
much  greater  but  for  the  vigilance  of  the  royal  surgeons,  whose 
business  it  was  to  examine  the  applicants,  and  to  distinguish 
those  who  came  for  the  cure  from  those  who  came  for  the 
gold.* 

*  See  the  Preface  to  a  Treatise  on  Wounds,  by  Richard  Wiseman,  Sergeant 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  431 

William  had  too  much  sense  to  be  duped,  aud  too  much  hon- 
esty to  bear  a  part  in  what  he  knew  to  be  an  imposture.  "  It 
is  a  silly  superstition,"  he  exclaimed,  when  he  heard  that,  at 
the  close  of  Lent,  his  palace  was  besieged  by  a  crowd  of  the 
sick :  "  Give  the  poor  creatures  some  money,  and  send  them 
away."*  On  one  single  occasion  he  was  importuned  into  laying 
his  hand  on  a  patient.  "  God  give  you  better  health,"  he  said, 
"  and  more  sense/'  The  parents  of  scrofulous  children  cried 
out  against  his  cruelty:  bigots  lifted  up  their  hands  and  eyes  in 
horror  at  his  impiety :  Jacobites  sarcastically  praised  him  for 
not  presuming  to  arrogate  to  himself  a  power  which  belonged 
only  to  legitimate  sovereigns ;  and  even  some  Whigs  thought 
that  he  acted  unwisely  in  treating  with  such  marked  contempt 
a  superstition  which  had  a  strong  hold  on  the  vulgar  mind :  but 
William  was  not  to  be  moved,  and  was  accordingly  set  down 
by  many  High  Churchmen  as  either  an  infidel  or  a  puritan.f 

The  chief  cause,  however,  which  at  this  time  made  even  the 
most  moderate  plan  of  comprehension  hateful  to  the  priesthood 
still  remains  to  be  mentioned.  What  Buruet  had  foreseen  and 
foretold  had  come  to  pass.  There  was  throughout  the  clerical 
profession  a  strong  disposition  to  retaliate  on  the  Presbyterians 
of  England  the  wrongs  of  the  Episcopalians  of  Scotland.  It 
could  not  be  denied  that  even  the  highest  churchmen  had,  in  the 
summer  of  1G88,  generally  declared  themselves  willing  to  give 
up  many  things  for  the  sake  of  union.  But  it  was  said,  and 
not  without  plausibility,  that  what  was  passing  on  the  other  side 

Chirurgeon  to  His  Majesty,  1676.  But  the  fullest  information  on  this  curious 
subject  will  be  found  in  the  Charisma  Basilicon,  by  John  Browne,  Chirurgeon 
in  ordinary  to  His  Majesty,  1684.  Sse  also  the  ceremonies  used  in  the  Time  of 
King  Henry  VII.  for  the  Healing  of  them  that  be  Diseased  with  the  King's  Evil, 
published  by  His  Majesty's  Command,  1686  ;  Evelyn's  Diary,  March  28,  1684  ;  and 
Bishop  Cartwright's  Diary,  Aug.  28,  29,  and  30,  1687.  It  is  incredible  that  so 
large  a  proportion  of  the  population  should  have  been  really  scrofulous.  No 
doubt  many  persons  who  had  slight  and  transient  maladies  were  brought  to  the 
king  ;  and  the  recovery  9f  these  persons  kept  up  the  vulgar  belief  in  the  efficacy 
of  his  touch. 

*  Paris  Gazette,  April  23.  I6R9. 

t  See  Whiston's  Life  of  himself.  Poor  "Whicton,  who  believed  in  everything 
but  the  Trinity,  tells  us  gravely  that  the  single  per.-on  whom  William  touched 
was  cured,  notwithstanding  His  Majesty's  want  of  faith.  See  also  the  Athenian 
Mercury  of  January  16, 1691. 


432  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

of  the  Border  proved  union  on  any  reasonable  terms  to  be  im- 
possible. With  what  face,  it  was  asked,  can  those  who  will 
make  no  concession  to  us  where  we  are  weak,  blame  us  for  re- 
fusing to  make  any  concession  to  them  where  we  are  strong  ? 
We  cannot  judge  correctly  of  the  principles  and  feelings  of  a 
sect  from  the  professions  which  it  makes  in  a  time  of  feebleness 
and  suffering.  If  we  would  know  what  the  Puritan  spirit  reully 
is,  we  must  observe  the  Puritan  when  he  is  dominant.  He  was 
dominant  here  in  the  last  generation  ;  and  his  little  finger  was 
thicker  than  the  loins  of  the  prelates.  He  drove  hundreds  of 
quiet  students  from  their  cloisters,  and  thousands  of  respectable 
divines  from  their  parsonages,  for  the  crime  of  refusing  to  sign 
his  Covenant.  No  tenderness  was  shown  to  learning,  to  ge- 
nius, or  to  sanctity.  Such  men  as  Hall  and  Sanderson,  Chilling- 
worth  and  Hammond,  were  not  only  plundered  but  flung  into 
prisons,  and  exposed  to  all  the  rudeness  of  brutal  gaolers.  It 
was  made  a  crime  to  read  fine  psalms  and  prayers  bequeathed 
to  the  faithful  by  Ambrose  and  Chrysostom.  At  length  the  na- 
tion became  weary  of  the  reign  of  the  saints.  The  fallen  dy- 
nasty and  the  fallen  hierarchy  were  restored.  The  Puritan  was 
in  his  turn  subjected  to  disabilities  and  penalties;  and  he  im- 
mediately found  out  that  it  was  barbarous  to  punish  men  for 
entertaining  conscientious  scruples  about  a  garb,  about  a  cere- 
mony, about  the  functions  of  ecclesiastical  officers.  His  piteous 
complaints  and  his  arguments  in  favour  of  toleration  had  at 
length  imposed  on  many  well  meaning  persons.  Even  zealous 
churchmen  had  begun  to  entertain  a  hope  that  the  severe  disci- 
pline which  he  had  undergone  had  made  him  candid,  moderate, 
charitable.  Had  this  been  really  so,  it  would  doubtless  have 
been  our  duty  to  treat  his  scruples  with  extreme  tenderness. 
But,  while  we  were  considering  what  we  could  do  to  meet  his 
wishes  in  England,  he  had  obtained  ascendency  in  Scotland  ; 
and,  in  an  instant,  he  was  all  himself  again,  bigoted,  insolent, 
and  cruel.  Manses  had  been  sacked  ;  churches  shut  up  ;  prayer 
books  burned ;  sacred  garments  torn  ;  congregations  dispersed 
by  violence  ;  priests  hustled,  pelted,  pilloried,  driven  forth,  with 
their  wives  and  babes,  to  beg  or  die  of  hunger.  That  these  out- 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  433 

rages  were  to  be  imputed,  not  to  a  few  lawless  marauders,  but 
to  the  great  body  of  the  Presbyterians  of  Scotland,  was  evident 
from  the  fact  that  the  government  had  not  dared  either  to  inflict 
punishment  on  the  offenders  or  to  grant  relief  to  the  sufferers. 
Was  it  not  fit  then  that  the  Church  of  England  should  take 
wai  ning  ?  Was  it  reasonable  to  ask  her  to  mutilate  her  apos- 
tolical polity  and  her  beautiful  ritual  for  the  purpose  of  concil- 
iating those  who  wanted  nothing  but  power  to  rabble  her  as 
they  had  rabbled  her  sister  ?  Already  these  men  had  obtained 
a  boon  which  they  ill  deserved,  and  which  they  never  would 
have  granted.  They  worshipped  God  in  perfect  security. 
Their  meeting  houses  were  as  effectually  protected  as  the  choirs 
of  our  cathedrals.  While  no  episcopal  minister  could,  without 
putting  his  life  in  jeopardy,  officiate  in  Ayrshire  or  Renfrewshire, 
a  hundred  Presbyterian  ministers  preached  unmolested  every 
Sunday  in  Middlesex.  The  legislature  had,  with  a  generosity 
perhaps  imprudent,  granted  toleration  to  the  most  intolerant  of 
men ;  and  with  toleration  it  behoved  them  to  be  content. 

Thus  several  causes  conspired  to  inflame  the  parochial  clergy 
against  the  scheme  of  comprehension.  Their  temper  was  such 
that,  if  the  plan  framed  in  the  Jerusalem  Chamber  had  been 
directly  submitted  to  them,  it  w  u  1  have  been  rejected  by  a 
majority  of  twenty  to  one.  But  in  the  Convocation  their  weight 
bore  no  proportion  to  their  number.  The  Convocation  has, 
happily  for  our  country,  been  so  long  utterly  insignificant  that, 
till  a  recent  period,  none  but  curious  students  cared  to  enquire 
how  it  was  constituted ;  and  even  now  many  persons,  not  gen- 
erally ill  informed,  imagine  it  to  be  a  council  representing  the 
Church  of  England.  In  truth  the  Convocation  so  often  men- 
tioned in  our  ecclesiastical  history  is  merely  the  synod  of  the 
Province  of  Canterbury,  and  never  had  a  right  to  speak  in  the 
name  of  the  whole  clerical  body.  The  Province  of  York  has 
also  its  Convocation :  but,  till  the  eighteenth  century  was  far 
advanced,  the  Province  of  York  was  generally  so  poor,  so  rude, 
and  so  thinly  peopled,  that,  in  political  importance,  it  could 
hardly  be  considered  as  more  than  a  tenth  part  of  the  kingdom. 
The  sense  of  the  Southern  clergy  was  therefore  popularly  con- 
VOL.  III.— 28 


434  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

sidered  as  the  sense  of  the  whole  profession.  When  the  formal 
concurrence  of  the  Northern  clergy  was  required,  it  seems  to  have 
been  given  as  a  matter  of  course.  Indeed  the  canons  passed  by  the 
Convocation  of  Canterbury  in  1604  were  ratified  by  James  the 
First,  and  were  ordered  to  be  strictly  observed  in  every  part  of 
the  kingdom  two  years  before  the  Convocation  of  York  went 
through  the  form  of  approving  them.  Since  these  ecclesiastical 
councils  became  mere  names,  a  great  change  has  taken  place  in 
the  relative  position  of  the  two  Archbishoprics.  In  all  the  ele- 
ments of  power,  the  region  beyond  Trent  is  now  at  least  a  third 
part  of  England.  When  in  our  own  time  the  representative 
system  was  adjusted  to  the  altered  state  of  the  country,  almost 
all  the  small  boroughs  which  it  was  necessary  to  disfranchise 
were  in  the  south.  Two  thirds  of  the  new  members  given  to 
great  provincial  towns  were  given  to  the  north.  If  therefore 
any  English  government  should  suffer  the  Convocations,  as  now 
constituted,  to  meet  for  the  despatch  of  business,  two  indepen- 
dent synods  would  be  legislating  at  the  same  time  for  one  Church. 
It  is  by  no  means  impossible  that  one  assembly  might  adopt 
canons  which  the  other  might  reject,  that  one  assembly  might 
condemn  as  heretical  propositions  which  the  other  might  hold 
to  be  orthodox.*  In  the  seventeenth  century  no  such  danger 
was  apprehended.  So  little  indeed  was  the  Convocation  of 
York  then  considered,  that  the  two  Houses  of  Parliament  had, 
in  their  address  to  William,  spoken  only  of  one  Convocation, 
which  they  called  the  Convocation  of  the  Clergy  of  the  King- 
dom. 

The  body  which  they  thus  not  very  accurately  designated  is 
divided  into  two  Houses.  The  Upper  House  is  composed  of 
the  Bishops  of  the  Province  of  Canterbury.  The  Lower  House 
consisted,  in  1689,  of  a  hundred  and  forty-four  members. 
Twenty-two  Deans  and  fifty-four  Archdeacons  sate  there  in 

*  In  several  recent  publications  tlie  apprehension  that  differences  might 
arise  between  the  Convocation  of  York  and  the  Convocation  of  Canterbury  has 
been  contemptuously  pronounced  chimerical.  But  it  is  not  easy  to  understand 
why  two  independent  Convocations  should  be  less  likely  to  differ  than  two 
Houses  of  the  same  Convocation  ;  and  it  is  matter  of  notoriety  that,  in  the  reigns 
of  William  The  Third  and  Aim*,  the  two  Houses  of  the  Convocation  of  Canterbury 


WILLIAM   AND  -MARY.  435 

virtue  of  their  offices.  Twenty-four  divines  sate  as  proctors  for 
twenty-four  chapters.  Only  forty-four  proctors  were  elected  by 
the  eight  thousand  parish  priests  of  the  twenty-two  dioceses. 
These  forty-four  proctors,  however,  were  almost  all  of  one 
mind.  The  elections  had  in  former  times  been  conducted  in  the 
most  quiet  and  decorous  manner.  But  on  this  occasion  the  can- 
vassing was  eager  :  the  contests  were  sharp :  Clarendon,  who 
had  refused  to  take  the  oaths,  and  his  brother  Rochester,  the 
leader  of  the  party  which  in  the  House  of  Lords  had  opposed 
the  Comprehension  Bill,  had  gone  to  Oxford,  the  head  quarters 
of  that  party,  for  the  purpose  of  animating  and  organising  the 
opposition.*  The  representatives  of  the  parochial  clergy  must 
have  been  men  whose  chief  distinction  was  their  zeal :  for  in 
the  whole  list  can  be  found  not  a  single  illustrious  name,  and 
very  few  names  which  are  now  known  even  to  persons  well 
read  in  ecclesiastical  history.f  The  official  members  of  the 
Lower  House,  among  whom  were  many  distinguished  scholars 
and  preachers,  seem  to  have  been  not  very  unequally  divided."'' 
During  the  summer  of  1689  several  high  spiritual  dignities 
became  vacant,  and  were  bestowed  on  divines  who  were  sitting 
in  the  Jerusalem  Chamber.  It  has  already  been  mentioned 
that  Thomas,  Bishop  of  Worcester,  died  just  before  the  day 
fixed  for  taking  (he  oaths,  Lake,  Bishop  of  Chichester  lived  just 
long  enough  to  refuse  them,  and  with  his  last  breath  declared 
that  he  would  maintain  even  at  the  stake  the  doctrine  of  in- 
defeasible hereditary  right.  The  see  of  Chichester  was  filled 
by  Patrick,  and  that  of  Worcester  by  Stillingfleet;  and  the 
deanery  of  Saint  Paul's  which  StilMngfleet  quitted  was  given  to 
Tillotson.  That  Tillotson  was  not  raised  to  the  episcopal  bench 
excited  some  surprise.  But  in  truth  it  was  because  the  govern- 
ment held  his  services  in  the  highest  estimation  that  he  was 
suffered  to  remain  a  little  longer  a  simple  presbyter.  The 

i 

*  Birch's  Life  of  Tillotson  ;  Life  of  Prideanx.  From  Clarendon's  Diary,  it 
appears  tliat  he  and  Rochester  were  at  Oxford  on  the  23rd  of  September. 

t  See  the  Roll  in  the  Historical  Account  of  the  present  Convocation,  appended 
to  the  second  edition  of  Vox  Cleri,  1690.  The  most  considerable  name  that  I  per- 
ceive in  the  list  of  proctor;  chosen  by  the  parochial  clergy  is  that  of  Dr.  John 
Mill,  the  editor  of  the  Greek  Testament. 


436  HISTORY   OP   ENGLAND. 

most  important  office  in  the  Convocation  was  that  of  Prolocu- 
tor of  the  Lower  House:  the  Prolocutor  was  to  be  chosen 
by  the  members ;  and  it  was  hoped  at  court  that  they  would 
choose  Tillotson.  It  had  in  fact  been  already  determined 
that  he  should  be  the  next  Archbishop  of  Canterbury.  When 
he  went  to  kiss  hands  for  his  new  deanery  he  warmly  thanked 
the  King.  "Your  Majesty  has  now  set  me  at  ease  for  the. 
remainder  of  my  life."  "No  such  thing,  Doctor,  I  assure 
you,"  said  William.  He  then  plainly  intimated  that,  whenever 
Bancroft  should  cease  to  fill  the  highest  ecclesiastical  station, 
Tillotson  would  succeed  to  it.  Tillotson  stood  aghast :  for  his 
nature  was  quiet  and  unambitious  :  he  was  beginning  to  feel  the 
infirmities  of  old  age  ;  he  cared  little  for  rank  or  money  :  the 
worldly  advantages  which  he  most  valued  were  an  honest  fame 
and  the  general  good  will  of  mankind :  those  advantages  he 
already  possessed ;  and  he  could  not  but  be  aware  that,  if  he 
became  primate,  he  should  incur  the  bitterest  hatred  of  a  power- 
ful party,  and  should  become  a  mark  for  obloquy,  from  which 
his  gentle  and  sensitive  nature  shrank  as  from  the  rack  or  the 
wheel.  William  was  earnest  and  resolute.  "  It  is  necessary," 
he  said,  "  for  my  service ;  and  I  must  lay  on  your  conscience 
the  responsibility  of  refusing  me  your  help."  Here  the  conver- 
sation ended.  It  was,  indeed,  not  necessary  that  the  point 
should  be  immediately  decided ;  for  several  months  were  still  to 
elapse  .before  the  Archbishopric  would  be  vacant. 

Tillotson  bemoaned  himself  with  unfeigned  anxiety  and 
sorrow  to  Ladj'  Russell,  whom,  of  all  human  beings,  he  most 
honoured  and  trusted.*  He  hoped,  he  said,  that  he  was  not 
inclined  to  shrink  from  the  service  of  the  Church  ;  but  he  was 
convinced  that  his  present  line  of  service  was  that  in  which  he 
could  be  most  useful.  If  he  should  be  forced  to  accept  so  high 

*  The  letter  in  which  Tillotson  informed  Lady  Russell  of  the  King's  inten- 
tions is  printed  in  Birch's  book  :  but  the  date  is  clearly  erroneous.  Indeed  1 
feel  assured  that  parts  of  two  distinct  letters  have  been  by  some  blunder  joined 
together.  In  one  passage  Tillotson  informs  his  correspondent  that  Stillingfleet  is 
made  Bishop  of  "Worcester,  and  in  another  that  Walker  is  made  Bishop  of  Derry. 
Now  Stillinrrfleet  was  consecrated  Bishop  of  Worcester  on  the  13th.  of  October, 
1689,  and  Walker  was  not  made  Bishop  of  Derry  till  June  1690. 


WILLIAM    AND    MAKY.  437 

and  so  invidious  a  post  as  the  primacy,  he  should  soon  sink 
under  the  load  «f  duties  and  anxieties  too  heavy  for  his  strength. 
His  spirits,  and  with  his  spirits  his  abilities,  would  fail  him.  He 
gently  complained  of  Burnet,  who  loved  and  admired  him  with 
a  truly  generous  heartiness,  and  who  had  laboured  to  persuade 
both  the  King  and  Queen  that  there  was  in  England  only  one 
man  fit  for  the  highest  ecclesiastical  dignity.  "  The  Bishop  of 
Salisbury,"  said  Tillotson,  "  is  one  of  the  best  and  worst  friends 
that  I  know." 

Nothing  that  was  not  a  secret  to  Burnet  was  likely  to  be 
long  a  secret  to  anybody.  It  soon  began  to  be  whispered  about 
that  the  King  had  fixed  on  Tillotson  to  fill  the  place  of  Sancrof  t. 
The  news  caused  cruel  mortification  to  Compton,  who,  not  un- 
naturally, conceived  that  his  own  claims  were  unrivalled.  Pie 
had  educated  the  Queen  and  her  sister ;  and  to  the  instruction 
which  they  had  received  from  him  might  fairly  be  ascribed,  at 
least  in  part,  the  firmness  with  which,  in  spite  of  the  influence 
of  their  father,  they  had  adhered  to  the  established  religion. 
Compton  was,  moreover,  the  only  prelate  who,  during  the  late 
reign,  had  raised  his  voice  in  Parliament  against  the  dispensing 
power,  the  only  prelate  who  had  been  suspended  by  the  High 
Commission,  the  only  prelate  who  had  signed  the  invitation  to 
the  Prince  of  Orange,  the  only  prelate  who  had  actually  taken 
arms  against  Popery  and  arbitrary  power,  the  only  prelate,  save 
one,  who  had  voted  against  a  Regency.  Among  the  ecclesias- 
tics of  the  Province  of  Canterbury  who  had  taken  the  oaths,  he 
was  highest  in  rank.  He  had  therefore  held,  during  some  months, 
a  vicarious  primacy  ;  he  had  crowned  the  new  Sovereigns  ;  he 
had  consecrated  the  new  Bishops  :  he  was  about  to  preside  in 
the  Convocation.  It  may  be  added,  that  he  was  the  son  of  an 
Earl,  and  that  no  person  of  equally  high  birth  then  sate,  or  had 
ever  sate,  since  the  Reformation,  on  the  episcopal  bench.  That 
the  government  should  put  over  his  head  a  priest  of  his  own 
diocese,  who  was  the  son  of  a  Yorkshire  clothier,  and  who  was 
distinguished  only  by  abilities  and  virtues,  was  provoking  ;  and 
Compton,  though  by  no  means  a  badhearted  man,  was  much 
crovoked.  Perhaps  his  vexation  was  increased  by  the  reflection 


438  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

that  he  had,  for  the  sake  of  those  by  whom  he  was  thus  slighted, 
done  some  things  which  had  strained  his  conscience  and  sullied 
his  reputation,  that  he  had  at  one  time  practised  the  disingenuous 
arts  of  a  diplomatist,  and  at  another  time  given  scandal  to  his 
brethren  by  wearing  the  buffcoat  and  jackboots  of  a  trooper.  He 
could  not  accuse  Tillotson  of  inordinate  ambition.  But,  though 
Tillotson  was  most  unwilling  to  accept  the  Archbishopric  him- 
self, he  did  not  use  his  influence  in  favour  of  Compton,  but 
earnestly  recommended  Stillingfleet  as  the  man  fittest  to  preside 
over  the  Church  of  England.  The  consequence  was  that,  on  the 
eve  of  the  meeting  of  Convocation,  the  Bishop  who  was  to  be  at 
the  head  of  the  Upper  House  became  the  personal  enemy  of  the 
presbyter  whom  the  government  wished  to  see  at  the  head  of  the 
Lower  House.  This  quarrel  added  new  difficulties  to  difficul- 
ties which  little  needed  any  addition.* 

It  was  not  till  the  twentieth  of  November  that  the  Convoca- 
tion met  for  the  despatch  of  business.  The  place  of  meeting  had, 
in  former  times,  been  Saint  Paul's  Cathedral.  But  Saint  Paul's 
Cathedral  was  slowly  rising  from  its  ruins  ;  and,  though  the 
dome  already  towered  high  above  the  hundred  steeples  of  the 
City,  the  choir  had  not  yet  been  opened  for  public  worship.  The 
assembly  therefore  sate  at  Westminster.!  A  table  was  placed 
in  the  beautiful  chapel  of  Henry  the  Seventh.  Compton  was  in 
the  chair.  On  his  right  and  left  those  suffragans  of  Canterbury 
who  had  taken  the  oaths  were  ranged  in  gorgeous  vestments  of 
scarlet  and  miniver.  Below  the  table  was  assembled  the  crowd 
of  presbyters.  Beveridge  preached  a  Latin  sermon,  in  which 
he  warmly  eulogised  tho  existing  system,  and  yet  declared  him- 
self favourable  to  a  moderate  reform.  Ecclesiastical  laws  were, 
he  said,  of  two  kinds.  Some  laws  were  fundamental  and  eter- 
nal :  they  derived  they  authority  from  God  ;  nor  could  any  reli- 
gious community  abrogate  them  without  ceasing  to  form  a  part 
of  the  universal  Church.  Other  laws  were  local  and  temporary. 

*  Birch's  Life  of  Tillotson.  The  Account  there  given  of  the  coldness  between 
Comntori  and  Tillotson  was  taken  by  Birch  from  the  MSS.  of  Henry  Wharton, 
and  is  confirmed  by  many  circumstances  which  are  known  from  other  sources  of 
intelligence. 

t  Chamberlayne's  State  of  England,  18th  edition. 


WILLIAM    AXD    MART.  439 

They  had  been  framed  by  human  wisdom,  and  might  be  al- 
tered by  human  wisdom.  They  ought  not  indeed  to  be  altered 
without  grave  reasons.  But  surely,  at  that  moment,  such  rea- 
sons were  not  wanting.  To  unite  a  scattered  flock  in  one  fold 
under  one  shepherd,  to  remove  stumblingblock",  from  the  path  of 
the  weak,  to  reconcile  hearts  long  estranged,  to  restore  spiritual 
discipline  to  its  primitive  vigour,  to  place  the  best  and  purest 
of  Christian  societies  on  a  base  broad  enough  to  stand  against  all 
the  attacks  of  earth  and  hell,  these  were  objects  which  might 
well  justify  some  modification,  not  of  Catholic  institutions,  but 
of  national  or  provincial  usages.* 

The  Lower  House,  having  heard  this  discourse,  proceeded 
to  appoint  a  Prolocutor.  Sharp,  who  was  probably  put  forward 
by  the  members  favourable  to  a  comprehension  as  one  of  the 
highest  churchmen  among  them,  proposed  Tillotson.  Jane,  who 
had  refused  to  act  under  the  Royal  Commission,  was  proposed 
on  the  other  side.  After  some  animated  discussion,  Jane  was 
elected  by  fifty-five  votes  to  twenty  -eight.f 

The  Prolocutor  was  formally  presented  to  the  Bishop  of 
London,  and  made,  according  to  ancient  usage,  a  Latin  oration. 
In  this  oration  the  Anglican  Church  was  extolled  as  the  most 
perfect  of  all  institutions.  There  was  a  very  intelligible  intima- 
tion that  no  change  whatever  in  her  doctrine,  her  discipline,  or 
her  ritual  was  required :  and  the  discourse  concluded  with  a  most 
significant  sentence.  Compton,  when  a  few  months  before  he 
exhibited  himself  in  the  somewhat  unclerical  character  of  a 
colonel  of  horse,  had  ordered  the  colours  of  his  regiment  to  be 
embroidered  with  the  wellknown  words  "  Nolumus  leges  Anglize 
mutari  "  ;  and  with  these  words  Jane  closed  his  peroration. t 

Still  the  Low  Churchmen  did  not  relinquish  all  hope.  They 
very  wisely  determined  to  begin  by  proposing  to  substitute  les- 
sons taken  from  the  canonical  books  for  the  lessons  taken  from 
the  Apocrypha.  It  should  seem  that  this  was  a  suggestion 
which,  even  if  there  had  not  been  a  single  dissenter  in  the  king- 

*  Concio  ad  Svnodum  per  Gulielmum  Beveregium,  1689. 

t  Litttrell's  Diary  ;  Historical  Account  of  the  Present  Convocation. 

t  Rennet's  History,  iii.  552. 


440  HISTORY   OP    ENGLAND. 

dom,  might  well  have  been  received  with  favour.  For  the  Church 
had,  in  her  sixth  Article,  declared  that  the  canonical  books  were* 
and  that  the  Apocryphal  books  were  not,  entitled  to  be  called 
Holy  Scriptures,  and  to  be  regarded  as  the  rule  of  faith.  Even 
this  reform,  however,  the  High  Churchmen  were  determined  to 
oppose.  They  asked,  in  pamphlets  which  covered  the  counters 
of  Paternoster  Row  and  Little  Britain,  why  country  congrega- 
tions should  be  deprived  of  the  pleasure  of  hearing  about  the  ball 
of  pitch  with  which  Daniel  choked  the  dragon,  and  about  the 
fish  whose  liver  gave  forth  such  a  fume  as  sent  the  devil  flying 
from  Ecbatana  to  Egypt.  And  were  there  not  chapters  of  the 
wisdom  of  the  Son  of  Sirach  far  more  interesting  and  edifying 
than  the  genealogies  and  muster  rolls  which  made  Tip  a  large 
part  of  the  Chronicles  of  the  Jewish  Kings,  and  of  the  narrative 
of  Nehemiah  ?  No  grave  divine  however  would  have  liked  to 
maintain,  in  Henry  the  Seventh's  Chapel,  that  it  was  impossible 
to  find,  in  many  hundreds  of  pages  dictated  by  the  Holy  Spirit, 
fifty  or  sixty  chapters  more  edifying  than  anything  which  could 
be  extracted  from  the  works  of  the  most  respectable  uninspired 
moralist  or  historian.  The  leaders  of  the  majority  therefore 
determined  to  shun  a  debate  in  which  they  must  have  been  re- 
duced to  a  disagreeable  dilemma.  Their  plan  was,  not  to  reject 
the  recommendations  of  the  Commissioners,  but  to  prevent  those 
recommendations  from  being  discussed ;  and  with  this  view  a 
system  of  tactics  was  adopted  which  proved  successful. 

The  law,  as  it  had  been  interpreted  during  a  long  course  of 
years,  prohibited  the  Convocation  from  even  deliberating  on  any 
ecclesiastical  ordinance  without  a  previous  warrant  from  the 
Crown.  Such  a  warrant,  sealed  with  the  great  seal,  was  brought 
in  form  to  Henry  the  Seventh's  Chapel  by  Nottingham.  He  at 
the  same  time  delivered  a  message  from  the  King.  His  Majesty 
exhorted  the  assembly  to  consider  calmly  and  without  prejudice 
the  recommendations  of  the  Commission,  and  declared  that  he 
had  nothing  in  view  but  the  honour  and  advantage  of  the  Pro- 
testant religion  in  general,  and  of  the  Church  of  England  in 
particular.* 

*  Historical  Account  of  the  Present  Convocation,  1689. 


WILLIAM   AND   MART.  441 

The  Bishops  speedily  agreed  on  an  address  of  thanks  for 
the  royal  message,  and  requested  the  concurrence  of  the  Lower 
House.  Jane  and  his  adherents  raised  objection  after  objection. 
First  they  claimed  the  privilege  of  presenting  a  separate  address. 
When  they  were  forced  to  waive  this  claim,  they  refused  to  agree 
to  any  expression  which  imported  that  the  Church  of  England 
had  any  fellowship  with  any  other  Protestant  community. 
Amendments  and  reasons  were  sent  backward  and  forward.  Con- 
ferences were  held  at  which  Burnet  on  one  side  and  Jane  on  the 
other  were  the  chief  speakers.  At  last,  with  great  difficulty,  a 
compromise  was  made ;  and  an  address,  cold  and  ungracious 
compared  with  that  which  the  Bishops  had  framed,  was  presented 
to  the  King  in  the  Banqueting  House.  He  dissembled  his  vexa- 
tion, returned  a  kind  answer,  and  intimated  a  hope  that  the 
assembly  would  now  at  length  proceed  to  consider  the  great 
question  of  Comprehension.* 

Such  however  was  not  the  intention  of  the  leaders  of  the 
Lower  House.  As  soon  as  they  were  again  in  Henry  the  Sev- 
enth's Chapel,  one  of  them  raised  a  debate  about  the  nonjuring 
Bishops.  In  spite  of  the  unfortunate  scruple  which  those  pre- 
lates entertained,  they  were  learned  and  holy  men.  Their 
advice  might,  at  this  conjuncture,  be  of  the  greatest  service  to 
the  Church.  The  Upper  House  was  hardly  an  Upper  House 
in  the  absence  of  the  Primate  and  of  many  of  his  most  respect- 
able suffragans.  Could  nothing  be  done  to  remedy  this  evil  ?  f 
Another  member  complained  of  some  pamphlets  which  had 
lately  appeared,  and  in  which  the  Convocation  was  not  treated 
•with  proper  deference.  The  assembly  took  fire.  Was  it  not 
monstrous  that  this  heretical  and  schismatical  trash  should  be 
cried  by  the  hawkers  about  the  streets,  and  should  be  exposed 
to  sale  in  the  booths  of  Westminster  Hall,  within  a  hundred 
yards  of  the  Prolocutor's  chair  ?  The  work  of  mutilating  the 
Liturgy  and  of  turning  cathedrals  into  conventicles  might  surely 
be  postponed  till  the  Synod  had  taken  measures  to  protect  its  own 

*  Historical  Account  of  the  Present  Convocation  ;  Bnruet,  ii.  58 ;  Kennet'* 
History  of  the  Reign  of  William  and  Mary. 

t  Historical  Account  of  the  Present  Convocation  ;  Rennet's  History. 


442  BISTORT   OP   ENGLAND. 

freedom  and  dignity.  It  was  then  debated  how  the  printing  of 
such  scandalous  books  should  be  prevented.  -  Some  were  for 
indictments,  some  for  ecclesiastical  censures.*  In  such  deliber- 
ations as  these  week  after  week  passed  away.  Not  a  single 
proposition  tending  to  a  Comprehension  had  been  even  dis- 
cussed. Christmas  was  approaching.  At  Christmas  there  was 
to  be  a  recess.  The  Bishops  were  desirous  that,  during  the  recess, 
a  committee  should  sit  to  prepare  business.  The  Lower  House 
refused  to  consent.f  That  House,  it  was  now  evident,  was 
fully  determined  not  even  to  enter  on  the  consideration  of  any 
part  of  the  plan  which  had  been  framed  by  the  Royal  Commis- 
sioners. The  proctors  of  the  dioceses  were  in  a  worse  humour 
than  when  they  first  came  up  to  Westminster.  Many  of  them 
had  probably  never  before  passed  a  week  in  the  capital,  and  had 
not  been  aware  how  great  the  difference  was  between  a  town 
divine  and  a  country  divine.  The  sight  of  the  luxuries  and 
comforts  enjoyed  by  the  popular  preachers  of  the  city  raised, 
not  unnaturally,  some  sore  feeling  in  a  Lincolnshire  or  Caernar- 
vonshire vicar  who  was  accustomed  to  live  as  hardly  as  a  small 
farmer.  The  very  circumstance  that  the  London  clergy  were 
generally  for  a  comprehension  made  the  representative's  of  the 
rural  clergy  obstinate  on  the  other  side.J  The  prelates  were, 
as  a  body,  sincerely  desirous  that  some  concession  might  be  made 
to  the  nonconformists.  But  the  prelates  were  utterly  unable  to 
curb  the  mutinous  democracy.  They  were  few  in  number. 
Some  of  them  were  objects  of  extreme  dislike  to  the  parochial 
clergy.  The  President  had  not  the  full  authority  of  a  primate  ; 
nor  was  he  sorry  to  see  those  who  had,  as  he  conceived,  used 

*  Historical  Account  of  the  Present  Convocation  ;  Kennet. 

t  Historical  Account  of  the  Present  Convocation. 

t  That  there  was  such  a  jealousy  as  I  have  described  is  admitted  in  the  pam- 
phlet entitled  Vox  Cleri.  "  Some  country  ministers,  now  of  the  Convocation,  do 
now  see  in  what  great  ease  and  plenty  the  City  ministers  live,  who  have  their 
readers  and  lecturers,  and  frequent  supplies,  and  sometimes  tarry  in  the  vestry 
till  prayers  be  ended,  and  have  great  dignities  in  the  Church,  beside  their  rich 
parishes  in  the  City."  The  author  of  this  tract,  once  widely  celebrated,  was 
Thomas  Long,  proctor  for  the  clergy  of  the  diocese  of  Exeter.  In  another  pam- 
phlet, published  at  this  time,  the  rural  clergymen  are  said  to  have  seen  with  an 
evil  eye  their  London  brethren  refreshing  themselves  with  sack  after  preaching. 
Several  satirical  allusions  to  the  fable  of  the  Town  Mouse  and  the  Country  Mouse 
•will  be  found  in  the  pamphlets  of  that  winter. 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  443 

him  ill,  thwarted  and  mortified.  It  was  necessary  to  yield. 
The  Convocation  was  prorogued  for  six  weeks.  When  those 
six  weeks  had  expired,  it  was  prorogued  again  ;  and  many 
years  elapsed  before  it  was  permitted  to  transact  business. 

So  ended,  and  for  ever,  the  hope  that  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land might  be  induced  to  make  some  concession  to  the  scruples  of 
the  nonconformists.  A  learned  and  respectable  minority  of  the 
clerical  order  relinquished  that  hope  with  deep  regret.  Yet  in 
a  very  short  time  even  Burnet  and  Tillotson  found  reason  to 
believe  that  their  defeat  was  really  an  escape,  and  that  victory 
would  have  been  a  disaster.  A  reform,  such  as,  in  the  days  of 
Elizabeth,  would  have  united  the  great  body  of  English  Pro- 
testants, would,  in  the  days  of  William,  have  alienated  more 
hearts  than  it  would  have  conciliated.  The  schism  which  the 
oaths  had  produced  was,  as  yet,  insignificant.  Innovations  such 
as  those  proposed  by  the  Royal  Commissioners  would  have  given 
it  a  terrible  importance.  As  yet  a  layman,  though  he  might 
think  the  proceedings  of  the  Convention  unjustifiable,  and 
though  he  might  applaud  the  virtue  of  the  nonjuring  clergy, 
still  continued  to  sit  under  the  accustomed  pulpit,  and  to  kneel 
at  the  accustomed  altar.  But  if,  just  at  this  conjuncture,  while 
his  mind  was  irritated  by  what  he  thought  the  wrong  done  to 
his  favourite  divines,  and  while  he  was  perhaps  doubting 
whether  he  ought  not  to  follow  them,  his  ears  and  eyes  had 
been  shocked  by  changes  in  the  worship  to  which  he  was  fondly 
attached,  if  the  compositions  of  the  doctors  of  the  Jerusalem 
Chamber  had  taken  the  place  of  the  old  collects,  if  he  had  seen 
clergymen  without  surplices  carrying  the  chalice  and  the  paten 
up  and  down  the  aisle  to  seated  communicants,  the  tie  which 
bound  him  to  the  Established  Church  would  have  been  dissolved. 
He  would  have  repaired  to  some  nonjuring  assembly,  where  the 
service  which  he  loved  was  performed  without  mutilation.  The 
new  sect,  which  as  yet  consisted  almost  exclusively  of  priests, 
would  soon  have  been  swelled  by  numerous  and  large  congre- 
gations :  and  in  those  congregations  would  have  been  found  a 
much  greater  proportion  of  the  opulent,  of  the  highly  descended, 
and  of  the  highly  educated,  than  any  other  body  of  dissenters 


444  HISTOKY    OF    ENGLAND. 

could  show.  The  episcopal  schismatics,  thus  remrorced,  would 
probably  have  been  as  formidable  to  the  new  King  and  his  suc- 
cessors as  ever  the  Puritan  schismatics  had  been  to  the  princes 
of  the  House  of  Stuart.  It  is  an  indisputable  and  a  most 
instructive  fact,  that  we  are,  in  a  great  measure,  indebted  for 
the  civil  and  religious  liberty  which  we  enjoy  to  the  pertina- 
city with  which  the  High  Church  party,  in  the  Convocation 
of  1680,  refused  even  to  deliberate  on  any  plan  of  Compre- 
hension.* 

*  Burnet,  ii.  33,  .34.  The  best  narratives  of  what  passed  in  this  Convocation 
are  the  Historical  Account  appended  to  the  second  edition  of  Vox  Cleri;  and  the 
passage  in  Kennet's  History  to  which  I  have  already  referred  the  reader.  The 
former  narrative  is  by  a  very  high  churchman,  the  latter  by  a  very  low  church- 
man. Those  who  are  desirous  of  obtaining  fuller  information  must  consult  the 
contemporary  pamphlets.  Among  them  are  Vox  Populi ;  Vox  Laici  ;  Vox  liegis 
et  Regni ;  the  Healing  attempt ;  the  Letter  to  a  Friend,  by  Dean  Prideaux  ;  the 
Letter  from  a  Minister  in  the  Country  to  a  Member  of  the  Convocation ;  the 
Answer  to  the  Merry  Answer  to  Vox  Cleri ;  the  Remarks  from  the  Country  upon 
two  Letters  relating  to  the  Convocation  ;  the  Vindication  of  the  Letters  in  an- 
swer to  Vox  Cleri ;  the  Answer  to  the  Country  Minister's  Letter,  All  these 
tracts  appeared  late  m  1689  or  early  in  1690. 


WILLIAM   AND   MART.  445 


CHAPTER  XV. 

WHILE  the  Convocation  was  wrangling  on  one  side  of  Old 
Palace  Yard,  the  Parliament  was  wrangling  even  more  fiercely 
on  the  other.  The  Houses,  which  had  separated  on  the  twen- 
tieth of  August,  had  met  again  on  the  nineteenth  of  October. 
On  the  day  of  meeting  an  important  change  struck  every  eye. 
Halifax  was  no  longer  on  the  woolsack.  He  had  reason  to 
expect  that  the  persecution,  from  which  he  had  narrowly  escaped 
in  the  summer,  would  be  renewed.  The  events  which  had 
taken  place  during  the  recess,  and  especially  the  disasters  of  the 
campaign  in  Ireland,  had  furnished  his  enemies  with  fresh  means 
of  annoyance.  His  administration  had  not  been  successful ; 
and,  though  his  failure  was  partly  to  be  ascribed  to  causes 
against  which  no  human  wisdom  could  have  contended,  it  was 
also  partly  to  be  ascribed  to  the  peculiarities  of  his  temper  and 
his  intellect.  It  was  certain  that  a  large  party  in  the  Commons 
would  attempt  to  remove  him  ;  and  he  could  no  longer  depend 
on  the  protection  of  his  master.  It  was  natural  that  a  prince 
whp  was  emphatically  a  man  of  action  should  become  weary  of 
a  minister  who  was  a  man  of  speculation.  Charles,  who  went 
to  Council  as  he  went  to  the  play,  solely  to  be  amused,  was 
delighted  with  an  adviser  who  had  a  hundred  pleasant  and 
ingenious  things  to  say  on  both  sides  of  every  question.  But 
William  had  no  taste  for  disquisitions  and  disputations,  however 
lively  and  subtle,  which  occupied  much  time  and  led  to  no  con- 
clusion. It  was  reported,  and  is  not  improbable,  that  on  one 
occasion  he  could  not  refrain  from  expressing  in,  sharp  terms  at 
the  council  board  his  impatience  at  what  seemed  to  him  a  morbid 
habit  of  indecision.*  Halifax,  mortified  by  his  mischances  in 

*  "  Halifax  a  eu  une  reprimands  se'vere  publiquement  dans  le  conseil  par  le 
Prince d'Orange  pour  avoir  trop  balanced" — Avaux  to  De  Croissy,  Dublin,  June 
16-26, 1689.  "  His  mercurial  ^it,"  says  Buruet,  ii.  4,  "  was  not  well  suited  with 
the  King's  phlegm," 


44G  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

public  life,  dejected  by  domestic  calamities,  disturbed  by  ap- 
prehensions of  an  impeachment,  and  no  longer  supported  by 
royal  favour,  became  sick  of  public  life,  and  began  to  pine  for 
the  silence  and  solitude  of  his  seat  in  Nottinghamshire,  an  old 
Cistercian  Abbey  buried  deep  among  woods.  Early  in  October 
it  was  known  that  he  would  no  longer  preside  in  the  Upper 
House.  It  was  at  the  same  time  whispered  as  a  great  secret 
that  he  meant  to  retire  altogether  from  business,  and  that  he 
retained  the  Privy  seal  only  till  a  successor  should  be  named. 
Chief  Baron  Atkyns  was  appointed  Speaker  of  the  Lords.* 

On  some  important  points  there  appeared  to  be  no  difference 
of  opinion  in  the  legislature.  The  Commons  unanimously 
resolved  that  they  would  stand  by  the  King  in  the  work  of 
reconquering  Ireland,  and  that  they  would  enable  him  to  prose- 
cute with  vigour  the  war  against  France,  f  With  equal  unanim- 
ity they  voted  an  extraordinary  supply  of  two  millions. |  It 
was  determined  that  the  greater  part  of  this  sum  should  be  levied 
by  an  assessment  on  real  property.  The  rest  was  to  be  raised 
partly  by  a  poll  tax,  and  partly  by  new  duties  on  tea,  coffee, 
and  chocolate.  It  was  proposed  that  a  hundred  thousand  pounds 
should  be  exacted  from  the  Jews  ;  and  this  proposition  was  at 
first  favourably  received  by  the  house :  but  difficulties  arose. 
The  Jews  presented  a  petition  in  which  they  declared  that  they 
could  not  afford  to  pay  such  a  sum,  and  that  they  would  rather 
leave  the  kingdom  than  stay  there  to  be  ruined.  Enlightened 
politicians  could  not  but  perceive  that  special  taxation,  laid  on 
a  small  class  which  happens  to  be  rich,  unpopular,  and  defence- 
less, is  really  confiscation,  and  must  ultimately  impoverish  rather 
than  enrich  the  State.  After  some  discussion,  the  Jew  tax  was 
abandoned. § 

*  Clarendon's  Diary,  Oct.  10,  16°9;  Lords'  Journals,  Oct.  19, 1C89. 

t  Commons'  Journals,  Oct.  24,  ICtt'J. 

J  Commons'  Journals,  Nov.  2,  1689. 

§  Commons'  Journals,  November  7, 19,  Dec.  30,  1689.  The  rule  of  the  House 
then  was  that  no  petition  could  be  received  against  the  imposition  of  a  tax. 
This  rule  was,  after  a  very  hard  fight,  rescinded  in  1842.  The  petition  of  the 
Jews  was  not  received,  and  is  not  mentioned  in  t]*e  Journals.  But  something 
may  be  learned  about  it  from  Luttrell's  Diary  and  from  Grey's  Debates,  Nov.  19, 
1C89, 


WILLIAM    AXD    MAKY.  447 

The  Bill  of  Rights,  which,  in  the  last  Session,  had,  after 
causing  much  altercation  between  the  Houses,  been  suffered  to 
drop,  was  again  introduced,  and  was  speedily  passed.  The 
peers  no  longer  insisted  that  any  person  should  be  designated 
by  name  as  successor  to  the  crown,  if  Mary,  Anne,  and  William 
should  all  die  without  posterity.  During  eleven  years  nothing 
more  was  heard  of  the  claims  of  the  House  of  Brunswick. 

The  Bill  of  Rights  contained  some  provisions  which  deserve 
special  mention.  The  Convention  had  resolved  that  it  was 
contrary  to  the  interest  of  the  kingdom  to  be  governed  by  a 
Papist,  but  had  prescribed  no  test  which  could  ascertain  whether 
a  prince  was  or  was  not  a  Papist.  The  defect  was  now  supplied. 
It  was  enacted  that  every  English  Sovereign  should,  in  full 
Parliament,  and  at  the  coronation,  repeat  and  subscribe  the 
Declaration  against  Transubstantiation. 

It  was  also  enacted  that  no  person  who  should  marry  a 
Papist  should  be  capable  of  reigning  in  England,  and  that,  if 
the  Sovereign  should  marry  a  Papist,  the  subject  should  be 
absolved  from  allegiance.  Burnet  boasts  that  this  part  of  the 
Bill  of  Rights  was  his  work.  He  had  little  reason  to  boast : 
for  a  more  wretched  specimen  of  legislative  workmanship  will 
not  easily  be  found.  In  the  first  place,  no  test  is  prescribed. 
Whether  the  consort  of  a  Sovereign  has  taken  the  oath  of 
supremacy,  has  signed  the  declaration  against  transubstantiation, 
has  communicated  according  to  the  ritual  of  the  Church  of 
England,  are  very  simple  issues  of  fact.  But  whether  the 
consort  of  a  Sovereign  is  or  is  not  a  Papist  is  a  question  about 
which  people  may  argue  for  ever.  What  is  a  Papist  ?  The 
word  is  not  a  word  of  definite  signification  either  in  law  or  in. 
theology.  It  is  merely  a  popular  nickname,  and  means  very 
different  things  in  different  mouths.  Is  every  person  a  Papist 
who  is  willing  to  concede  to  the  Bishop  of  Rome  a  primacy 
among  Christian  prelates?  If  so,  James  the  First,  Charles  the 
First,  Laud,  Heylyn,  were  Papists.*  Or  is  the  appellation  to 

*  James,  in  the  very  treatise  in  which  he  tried  to  prove  the  Pope  to  be  Anti- 
Christ,  says  :  "For  myself,  if  that  were  yet  the  question,  I  would  with  all  my 
heart  give  my  consent  that  the  Bishop  of  Rome  should  have  the  first  seat." 
There  is  a  remarkable  letter  on  this  subject  written  by  James  to  Charles  and 


448  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

be  confined  to  persons  who  hold  the  ultramontane  doctrines 
touching  the  authority  of  the  Holy  See  ?  If  so,  neither  Bossuet 
nor  Pascal  was  a  Papist. 

What  again  is  the  legal  effect  of  the  words  which  absolve 
the  subject  from  his  allegiance  ?  Is  it  meant  that  a  person 
arraigned  for  high  treason  may  tender  evidence  to  prove  that 
the  Sovereign  has  married  a  Papist  ?  Would  Thistlewood,  for 
example,  have  been  entitled  to  an  acquittal,  if  he  icould  have 
proved  that  King  George  the  Fourth  had  married  Mrs.  Fitzher- 
bert,  and  that  Mrs.  Fitzherbert  was  a  Papist?  It  is.  not  easy 
to  believe  that  any  tribunal  would  have  gone  into  such  a 
question.  Yet  to  what  purpose  is  it  to  enact  that,  in  a  certain 
case,  the  subject  shall  be  absolved  from  his  allegiance,  if  the 
tribunal  before  which  he  is  tried  for  a  violation  of  his  allegiance 
is  not  to  go  into  the  question  whether  that  case  has  arisen  ? 

The  question  of  the  dispensing  power  was  treated  in  a  very 
different  manner,  was  fully  considered,  and  was  finally  settled 
in  the  only  way  in  which  it  could  be  settled.  The  Declaration 
of  Right  had  gone  no  farther  than  to  pronounce  that  the  dispen- 
sing power,  a.;  of  late  exercised,  was  illegal.  That  a  certain 
dispensing  power  belonged  to  the  Crown  was  a  proposition  sanc- 
tioned by  authorities  and  precedents  of  which  even  Whig 
lawyers  could  not  speak  without  respect  :  but  as  to  the  precise 
extent  of  this  power  hardly  any  two  jurists  were  agreed;  and 
every  attempt  to  frame  a  definition  had  failed.  At  length  by 
the  Bill  of  Rights  the  anomalous  prerogative  which  had  caused 
so  many  fierce  disputes  was  absolutely  and  for  ever  taken  away.* 

In  the  House  of  Commons  there  was,  as  might  have  been  ex- 
pected, a  series  of  sharp  debates  on  the  misfortunes  of  the  au- 
tumn.    The  negligence  or  corruption  of  the  Navy  Board,  the 
frauds   of  the  contractors,  the   rapacity  of  the   captains  of  the 
King's  ships,  the  losses  of  the  London  merchants,  were  themes 

Buckingham,  •when  they  were  in  Spain.  Heylyn,  speaking  of  Laud's  negotiation 
with  Rome,  says  :  "  So  that  upon  the  point  the  Pope  was  to  content  himself 
among  us  in  England  with  a  priority  instead  of  a  superiority  over  other  Bishops, 
and  with  a  primacy  instead  of  a  supremacy  in  these  parts  of  Christendom,  which 
I  conceive  no  man  of  learning  and  sobriety  would  have  grudged  to  grant  him." 
*  Stat.  1  W.  &  M.  BOSS.  2.  c.  2. 


WILLIAM    AND    MAKY.  449 

for  many  keen  speeches.  There  was  indeed  reason  for  anger. 
A  severe  enquiry,  conducted  by  William  in  person  at  the  Treas- 
ury, had  just  elicited  the  fact  that  much  of  the  salt  with  which 
the  meat  furnished  to  the  fleet  had  been  cured  had  been  by  acci- 
dent mixed  with  galls  such  as  are  used  for  the  purpose  of 
making  ink.  The  victuallers  threw  the  blame  on  the  rats,  and 
maintained  that  the  provisions  thus  seasoned,  though  certainly 
disagreeable  to  the  palate,  were  not  injurious  to  health.*  The 
Commons  were  in  no  temper  to  listen  to  such  excuses.  Several 
persons  who  had  been  concerned  in  cheating  the  government 
and  poisoning  the  seamen  were  taken  into  custody  by  the  Ser- 
jeant, t  But  no  censure  was  passed  on  the  chief  offender,  Tor- 
rington  ;  nor  does  it  appear  that  a  single  voice  was  raised 
against  him.  He  had  personal  friends  in  both  parties.  He  had 
many  popular  qualities.  Even  his  vices  were  not  those  which 
excite  public  hatred.  The  people  readily  forgave  a  courageous 
openhanded  sailor  for  being  too  fond  of  his  bottle,  his  boon  com- 
panions, and  his  mistresses,  and  did  not  sufficiently  consider  how 
great  must  be  the  perils  of  a  country  of  which  the  safety  de- 
pends on  a  man  sunk  in  indolence,  stupified  by  wine,  enervated 
by  licentiousness,  ruined  by  prodigality,  and  enslaved  by  syco- 
phants and  harlots. 

The  sufferings  of  the  army  in  Ireland  called  forth  strong  ex- 
pressions of  sympathy  and  indignation.  The  Commons  did  jus- 
tice to  the  firmness  and  wisdom  with  which  Schomberg  had 
conducted  the  most  arduous  of  all  campaigns.  That  he  had  not 
achieved  more  was  attributed  chiefly  to  the  villauy  of  the  Com- 
missariat. The  pestilence  itself,  it  was  said,  would  have  been  no 
serious  calamity  if  it  had  not  been  aggravated  by  the  wickedness 
of  man.  The  disease  had  generally  spared  those  who  had  warm 
garments  and  bedding,  and  had  swept  away  by  thousands  those 
who  were  thinly  clad  and  who  slept  on  the  wet  ground.  Im- 
mense sums  had  been  drawn  out  of  the  Treasury  :  yet  the  pay 
of  the  troops  was  in  arrear.  Hundreds  of  horses,  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  shoes,  had  been  paid  for  by  the  public  :  yet  the  bag- 

*  Treasury  Minute  Book,  Nov.  .•».  irsn. 

t  Coainions'  Journals  ami  Grey  s  I^bates,  Nov.  13, 14, 18, 19,  23,  28, 1689. 

VOL.  III.— 29 


450  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

gage  was  left  behind  for  want  of  beasts  to  draw  it :  and  the  sol- 
diers were  marching  barefoot  through  the  mire.  Seventeen 
hundred  pounds  hud  been  charged  to  the  government  for  medi- 
cines :  yet  the  common  drugs  with  which  every  apothecary  in 
the  smallest  market  town  was  provided,  were  not  to  be  found  in 
the  plague-stricken  camp.  The  cry  against  Shales  was  loud. 
An  address  was  carried  to  the  throne,  requesting  that  he  might 
be  sent  for  to  England,  and  that  his  accounts  and  papers  might 
be  secured.  With  this  request  the  King  readily  complied  :  but 
the  Whig  majority  was  not  satisfied.  By  whom  had  Shales 
been  recommended  for  so  important  a  place  as  that  of  Commis- 
sary General  ?  He  had  been  a  favourite  at  Whitehall  in  the 
worst  times.  He  had  been  zealous  for  the  Declaration  of  Indul- 
gence. Why  had  this  creature  of  James  been  entrusted  with 
the  business  of  catering  for  the  army  of  William  ?  It  was  pro- 
posed by  some  of  those  who  were  bent  on  driving  all  Tories 
and  Trimmers  from  office  to  ask  Plis  Majesty  by  whose  advice 
a  man  so  undeserving  of  the  royal  confidence  had  been  employed. 
The  most  moderate  and  judicious  Whigs  pointed  out  the  inde- 
cency and  impolicy  of  interrogating  the  King,  and  of  forcing 
him  either  to  accuse  his  ministers  or  to  quarrel  with  the  repre- 
sentatives of  his  people.  "  Advise  His  Majesty,  if  you  will," 
said  Somers,  "  to  withdraw  his  confidence  from  the  counsellors 
who  recommended  this  unfortunate  appointment.  Such  advice, 
given,  as  we  should  probably  give  it,  unanimously,  must  have 
great  weight  with  him.  But  do  not  put  to  him  a  question  such 
as  no  private  gentleman  would  willingly  answer.  Do  not  force 
him,  in  defence  of  his  own  personal  dignity,  to  protect  the  very 
men  whom  you  wish  him  to  discard."  After  a  hard  fight  of 
two  days,  and  several  divisions,  the  address  was  carried  by  a 
hundred  and  ninety  five  votes  to  a  hundred  and  forty-six.*  The 
King,  as  might  have  been  foreseen,  coldly  refused  to  turn  in- 
former ;  arid  the  House  did  not  press  him  further.!  To  another 
address  which  requested  that  a  Commission  might  be  sent  to  ex- 
amine into  the  state  of  things  in  Ireland,  William  returned  a 

*  Commons'  Journals  and  Orev's  Debates,  Nov.  26,  and  27,  1689. 
t  Commons'  Journals,  lso\  ember  2&,  December  2,  1GS9. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  451 

very  gracious  answer,  and  desired  the  Commons  to  name  the 
Commissioners.  The  Commons,  not  to  be  outdone  in  courtesy, 
excused  themselves,  and  left  it  to  His  Majesty's  wisdom  to  se- 
lect the  fittest  persons.* 

In  the  midst  of  the  angry  debates  on  the  Irish  war  a  pleasing 
incident  produced  for  a  moment  good  humour  and  unanimity. 
Walker  had  arrived  in  London,  and  had  been  received  there 
with  boundless  enthusiasm.  His  face  was  in  every  print  shop. 
Newsletters  describing  his  person  and  his  demeanour  were  sent 
to  every  corner  of  the  kingdom.  Broadsides  of  prose  and  verse 
written  in  his  praise  were  cried  in  every  street.  The  Companies 
of  London  feasted  him  splendidly  in  their  halls.  The  common 
people  crowded  to  gaze  on  him  wherever  he  moved,  and  almost 
stifled  him  with  rough  caresses.  Both  the  Universities  offered 
him  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Divinity.  Some  of  his  admirers 
advised  him  to  present  himself  at  the  palace  in  that  military 
garb  in  which  he  had  repeatedly  headed  the  sallies  of  his  fellow 
townsmen.  But.  with  a  better  judgment  than  he  sometimes 
showed,  he  made  his  appearance  at  Hampton  Court  in  the  peace- 
ful robe  of  his  profession,  was  most  graciously  received,  and  was 
presented  with  an  order  for  five  thousand  pounds.  "  And  do 
not  think,  Doctor,"  William  said,  with  great  benignity,  "  that  I 
offer  you  this  sum  as  payment  for  your  services.  I  assure  you 
that  I  consider  your  claims  on  me  as  not  at  all  diminished."  f- 

It  is  true  that  amidst  the  general  applause  the  voice  of  de- 
traction made  itself  heard.  The  defenders  of  Londonderry  were 
men  of  two  nations  and  of  two  religions.  During  the  siege, 
hatred  of  the  Irishry  had  held  together  all  Saxons  ;  and  hatred 
of  Popery  had  held  together  all  Protestants.  But,  when  the 
danger  was  over,  the  Englishman  and  the  Scotchman,  the 
Episcopalian  and  the  Presbyterian,  began  to  wrangle  about  the 
distribution  of  praises  and  awards.  The  dissenting  preachers, 
T\ho  had  zealously  assisted  Walker  in  the  hour  of  peril,  com- 

*  Commons'  Journals  and  Grey's  Debates.  November  30,  December  2, 1689. 

t  London  Gazette,  September  2, 1689 ;  Observations  upon  Mr.  Walker's  Ac- 
count of  the  Siege  of  Londonderry,  licensed  October  4,  1689  ;  Luttrell's  Diary ; 
Mr.  J.  Mackenzie's  Narrative  a  False  Libel,  a  Defence  of  Mr.  G.  Walker  written 
by  his  Friend  in  his  Absence,  1G90. 


452  HISTORY   OP   ENGLAND. 

plained  that,  in  the  account  which  he  had  published  of  the  siege, 
he  had,  though  acknowledging  that  they  had  done  good  service, 
omitted  to  mention  their  names.  The  complaint  was  just,  and, 
had  it  been  made  in  a  manner  becoming  Christians  and  gentle- 
men, would  probably  have  produced  a  considerable  effect  on  the 
public  mind.  But  Walker's  accusers  in  their  resentment  disre- 
garded truth  and  decency,  used  scurrilous  language,  brought 
calumnious  accusations  which  were  triumphantly  refuted,  and 
thus  threw  away  the  advantage  which  they  had  possessed. 
Walker  defended  himself  with  moderation  and  candour.  His 
friends  fought  his  battle  with  vigour,  and  retaliated  keenly  on 
his  assailants.  At  Edinburgh  perhaps  the  public  opinion  might 
have  been  against  him.  But  in  London  the  controversy  seems 
only  to  have  raised  his  character.  Pie  was  regarded  as  an 
Anglican  divine  of  eminent  merit,  who,  after  having  heroically 
defended  his  religion  against  an  army  of  Irish  Rapparees,  was 
rabbled  by  a  mob  of  Scotch  Covenanters.* 

He  presented  to  the  Commons  a  petition  setting  forth  the 
destitute  condition  to  which  the  widows  and  orphans  of  some 
brave  men  who  had  fallen  during  the  siege  were  now  reduced. 
The  Commons  instantly  passed  a  vote  of  thanks  to  him,  and  re- 
solved to  present  to  the  King  an  address  requesting  that  ten 
thousand  pounds  might  be  distributed  among  the  families  whose 
sufferings  had  been  so  touchingly  described.  The  next  day  it 
was  rumoured  about  the  benches  that  Walker  was  in  the  lobby. 
He  was  called  in.  The  Speaker,  with  great  dignity  and  grace, 
informed  him  that  the  House  had  made  haste  to  comply  with 
liis  request,  commended  him  in  high  terms  for  having  taken  on 
hitnself  to  govern  and  defend  a  city  betrayed  by  its  proper  gov- 
ernors and  defenders,  and  charged  him  to  tell  those  who  had 

*  Walker's  True  Account,  1689  ;  An  Apology  for  the  Failures  charged  on  the 
True  Account,  1G89  ;  Reflections  on  the  Apology,  1689;  A  Vindication  of  the  True 
Account  by  Walker,  1(389  ;  Mackenzie's  Narrative,  1630  ;  Mr.  Mackenzie's  Narra- 
tive a  Fal.-e  Libel,  1690  ;  Dr.  Walker's  Invisible  Champion  foyled  by  Mackenzie, 
1090  ;  Welwood's  Mercurius  Reformatus,  Dec.  4,  and  11,  1689,  The  Oxford  editor 
of  Burnet's  History  expresses  his  surprise  at  the  silence  which  the  Bishop  ob- 
serves about  Walker.  In  the  Burnet  MS.  Harl.  6584,  there  is  an  animated  pane- 
gyric on  Walker.  Why  that  panegyric  does  not  appear  in  the  History  I  am  at  a 
loss  to  explain. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  453 

fought  under  him  that  their  fidelity  and  valour  would  always 
be  held  in  grateful  remembrance  by  the  Commons  of  England.* 

About  the  same  time  the  course  of  parliamentary  business 
was  diversified  by  another  curious  and  interesting  episode, 
which,  like  the  former,  sprang  out  of  the  events  of  the  Irish 
war.  In  the  pr seeding  spring,  when  every  messenger  from 
Ireland  brought  evil  tidings,  and  when  the  authority  of  James 
was  acknowledged  in  every  part  of  that  kingdom,  except  behind 
the  ramparts  of  Londonderry  and  on  the  banks  of  Lough  Erne, 
it  was  natural  that  Englishmen  should  remember  with  how 
terrible  an  energy  the  great  Puritan  warriors  of  the  preceding 
generation  had  crushed  the  insurrection  of  the  Celtic  race.  The 
names  of  Cromwell,  of  Ireton,  and  of  the  other  chiefs  of  the 
conquering  army,  were  in  many  mouths.  One  of  those  chiefs, 
Edmund  Ludlow,  was  still  living.  At  twenty-two  he  had 
served  as  a  volunteer  in  the  parliamentary  army  :  at  thirty  he 
had  risen  to  the  rank  of  Lieutenant  General.  He  was  now  old  : 
but  the  viguor  of  his  mind  was  unimpaired.  His  courage  was 
of  the  truest  temper  ;  his  understanding  strong,  but  narrow. 
What  he  saw  he  saw  clearly :  but  he  saw  not  much  at  a  glance. 
In  an  age  of  perfidy  and  levity,  he  had,  amidst  manifold  tempta- 
tions and  dangers,  adhered  firmly  to  the  principles  of  his  youth. 
His  enemies  could  not  deny  that  his  life  had  been  consistent,  and 
that  with  the  same  spirit  with  which  he  had  stood  up  against 
the  Stuarts  he  had  stood  up  against  the  Cromwells.  There  was 
but  a  single  blemish  on  his  fame  :  but  that  blemish,  in  the  opin- 
ion of  the  great  majority  of  his  countrymen,  was  one  for  which 
no  merit  could  compensate  and  which  no  time  could  efface. 
His  name  and  seal  were  on  the  death  warrant  of  Charles  the 
First. 

After  the  Restoration,  Ludlow  found  a  refuge  on  the  shores 
of  the  Lake  of  Geneva.  He  was  accompanied  thither  by 
another  member  of  the  High  Court  of  Justice.  John  Lisle,  the 
husl  and  of  that  Alice  Lisle  whose  death  has  left  a  lasting  stain 
on  the  memory  of  James  the  Second.  But  even  in  Switzerland 
the  regicides  were  not  safe.  A  large  price  was  set  on  their 

*  Commons'  Journals,  November  18  and  19, 1689 ;  and  Grey's  Debates. 


454  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

heads  ;  and  a  succession  of  Irish  adventurers,  iuflamed  by 
national  and  religious  animosity,  attempted  to  earn  the  bribe. 
Lisle  fell  by  the  hand  of  one  of  these  assassins.  But  Ludlow 
escaped  unhurt  from  all  the  machinations  of  his  enemies.  A  small 
knot  of  vehement  and  determined  Whigs  regarded  him  with  a 
veneration,  which  increased  as  years  rolled  away,  and  left  him 
almost  the  only  survivor,  certainly  the  most  illustrious  survivor, 
of  a  mighty  race  of  men,  the  conquerors  in  a  terrible  civil  war, 
the  judges  of  a  king,  the  founders  of  a  republic.  More  than 
once  he  had  been  invited  by  the  enemies  of  the  House  of  Stuart 
to  leave  his  asylum,  to  become  their  captain,  and  to  give  the 
signal  for  rebellion  :  but  he  had  wisely  refused  to  take  any  part 
in  the  desperate  enterprises  which  the  Wildmans  and  Fergusons 
were  never  weary  of  planning.* 

The  Revolution  opened  a  new  prospect  to  him.  The  right 
of  the  people  to  resist  oppression,  a  right  which,  during  many 
years,  no  man  could  assert  without  exposing  himself  to  eccle- 
siastical anathemas  and  to  civil  penalties,  had  been  solemnly 
recognised  by  the  Estates  of  the  realm,  and  had  been  proclaimed 
by  Garter  King  at  Arms  on  the  very  spot  where  the  memorable 
scaffold  had  been  set  up  forty  years  before.  James  had  not, 
indeed,  like  Charles,  died  the  death  of  a  traitor.  Yet  the  pun- 
ishment of  the  son  might  seem  to  differ  from  the  punishment  of 
the  father  rather  in  degree  than  in  principle.  Those  who  had 
recently  waged  war  on  a  tyrant,  who  had  turned  him  out  of  his 
palace,  who  had  frightene'd  him  out  of  his  country,  who  had 
deprived  him  of  his  crown,  might  perhaps  think  that  the  crimo 
of  going  one  step  further  had  been  sufficiently  expiated  by 
thirty  years  of  banishment.  Ludlow's  admirers,  some  of  whom 
appear  to  have  been  in  high  public  situations,  assured  him  that 
he  might  safely  venture  over,  nay,  that  he  might  expect  to  be 
sent  in  high  command  to  Ireland,  where  his  name  was  still 
cherished  by  his  old  soldiers  and  by  their  children. f  He  came  : 
and  early  in  September  it  was  known  that  he  was  in  London.^ 

»  Wade's  Confession,  Harl.  MS.  0845. 

T  See  the  Preface  to  the  First  Edition  of  his  Memoirs,  Vevay,  109S. 

J  "  Colonel  Ludlow,  an  old  Oliverian,  and  one  of  King  Charles  the  First  his 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  455 

But  it  soon  appeared  that  he  and  his  friends  had  misunderstood 
the  temper  of  the  English  people.  By  all,  except  a  small 
extreme  section  of  the  Whig  party,  the  act,  in  which  he  had 
borne  a  part  never  to  be  forgotten,  was  regarded  not  merely 
with  the  disapprobation  due  to  a  great  violation  of  law  and 
justice,  but  with  horror  such  as  even  the  Gunpowder  Plot  had 
not  excited.  The  absurd  and  almost  impious  service  which  is 
still  read  in  our  churches  on  the  thirtieth  of  January  had  pro- 
duced in  the  minds  of  the  vulgar  a  strange  association  of  ideas. 
The  sufferings  of  Charles  were  confounded  with  the  sufferings  of 
the  Redeemer  of  mankind  ;  and  every  regicide  was  a  Judas,  a 
Caiaphas,  or  a  Herod.  It  was  true  that,  when  Ludlow  sate  on 
the  tribunal  in  Westminster  Hall,  he  was  an  ardent  enthusiast 
of  twenty-eight,  and  that  he  now  returned  from  exile  a  grey- 
headed and  wrinkled  man  in  his  seventieth  year.  Perhaps, 
therefore,  if  he  had  been  content  to  live  in  close  retirement,  and 
to  shun  places  of  public  resort,  even  zealous  Royalists  might 
not  have  grudged  the  old  Republican  a  grave  in  his  native  soil. 
But  he  had  no  thought  of  hiding  himself.  It  was  soon  rumoured 
that  one  cf  those  murderers,  who  had  brought  on  England  guilt, 
for  which  she  annually,  in  sackcloth  and  ashes,  implored  God 
not  to  enter  into  judgment  with  her,  was  strutting  about  the 
streets  of  her  capital  and  boasting  that  he  should  ere  long  com- 
mand her  armies.  His  lodgings,  it  was  said,  were  the  head 
quarters  of  the  most  noted  enemies  of  monarchy  and  episcopacy.* 
The  subject  was  brought  before  the  House  of  Commons.  The 
Tory  members  called  loudly  for  justice  on  the  traitor.  None 
of  the  Whigs  ventured  to  say  a  word  in  his  defence.  One  or 
two  faintly  expressed  a  doubt  whether  the  fact  of  his  return 
had  been  proved  by  evidence  such  as  would  warrant  a  parlia- 
mentary proceeding.  This  objection  was  disregarded.  It  was 
resolved,  without  a  division,  that  the  King  should  be  requested 
to  issue  a  proclamation  for  the  apprehending  of  Ludlow.  Sey- 
mour presented  the  address ;  and  the  King  promised  to  do 

Judges,  is  arrived  lately  in  this  kingdom  from  Switzerland."  LuttrelPs  Diary, 
September  1GS9. 

•  Third  Caveat  against  the  Whigs,  1712. 


456  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

what  was  asked.  Some  days  however  elapsed  before  the  pro- 
clamation appeared.*  Ludlow  had  time  to  make  his  escape, 
and  hid  himself  in  his  Alpine  retreat,  never  again  to  emerge. 
English  travellers  are  still  taken  to  see  his  house  close  to  the 
lake,  and  his  tomb  in  a  church  among  the  vineyards  which 
overlook  the  little  town  of  Vevay.  On  the  house  was  formerly 
legible  an  inscription  purporting  that  to  him  to  whom  God  is  a 
father  every  land  is  a  fatherland  ;  f  and  the  epitaph  on  the 
tomb  still  attests  the  feelings  with  which  the  stern  old  Puritan 
to  the  last  regarded  the  people  of  Ireland  and  the  House  of 
Stuart. 

Tories  and  Whigs  had  concurred,  or  had  affected  to  concur, 
in  paying  honour  to  Walker  and  in  putting  a  brand  on  Ludlow. 
But  the  feud  between  the  two  parties  was  more  bitter  than  ever. 
The  King  had  entertained  a  hope  that,  during  the  recess,  the 
animosities  which  had  in  the  preceding  session  prevented  an 
Act  of  Indemnity  from  passing  would  have  been  mitigated. 
On  the  day  on  which  the  Houses  reassembled,  he  had  pressed 
them  earnestly  to  put  an  end  to  the  fear  and  discord  which  could 
never  cease  to  exist,  while  great  numbers  held  their  property 
and  their  liberty,  and  not  a  few  even  their  Jives,  by  an  uncertain 
tenure.  His  exhortation  proved  of  no  effect.  October,  November, 
December  passed  away  ;  and  nothing  was  done.  An  Indem- 
nity Bill  indeed  had  been  brought  in,  and  read  once  :  but  it  had 
ever  since  lain  neglected  on  the  table  of  the  House.  J  Vindic- 
tive as  had  been  the  mood  in  which  the  Whigs  had  left  West- 
minster, the  mood  in  which  they  returned  was  more  vindictive 
still.  Smarting  from  old  sufferings,  drunk  with  recent  prosper- 
ity, burning  with  implacable  resentment,  confident  of  irresistible 
strength,  they  were  not  less  rash  and  headstrong  than  in  the 
days  of  the  Exclusion  Bill.  Sixteen  hundred  and  eighty  was 
come  again.  Again  all  compromise  was  rejected.  Again  the 

*  Commons'  Journals,  November  6  and  8, 1689 ;  Grey's  Debates ;  London  Ga- 
zette, November  18. 

t  "  Oimie  solum  forti  patria,  quia  patris."  See  Addison's  Travels.  It  is  a 
remarkable  circumstance  that  Addison,  though  a  Whig,  speaks  of  Li;diow  in  lan- 
guage which  would  better  have  become  a  Tory,  and  sneers  at  the  inscription  as 
cant. 

<t  Commons'  Journals,  Nov.  1,  7,  1689. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  457 

voices  of  the  wisest  and  most  upright  friends  of  liberty  were 
drowned  by  the  clamour  of  hotheaded  and  designing  agitators. 
Again  moderation  was  despised  as  cowardice,  or  execrated  as 
treachery.  All  the  lessons  taught  by  a  cruel  experience  were  for- 
gotten.  The  very  same  men  who  had  expiated,  by  years  of  hu- 
miliation, of  imprisonment,  of  penury,  of  exile,  the  folly  with 
which  they  had  misused  the  advantage  given  them  by  the 
Popish  plot,  now  misused  with  equal  folly  the  advantage  given 
them  by  the  Revolution.  The  second  madness  would  in  all 
probability,  like  the  first,  have  ended  in  their  proscription,  dis- 
persion, decimation,  but  for  the  magnanimity  and  wisdom  of  that 
great  prince,  who,  bent  on  fulfilling  his  mission,  and  insensible 
alike  to  flattery  and  to  outrage,  coldly  and  inflexibly  saved  them 
in  their  own  despite. 

It  seemed  that  nothing  but  blood  would  satisfy  them.  The 
aspect  and  the  temper  of  the  House  of  Commons  reminded  men 
of  the  time  of  the  ascendency  of  Gates  ;  and  that  nothing  might 
be  wanting  to  the  resemblance,  Gates  himself  was  there.  As 
a  witness,  indeed,  he  could  now  render  no  service :  but  he  had 
caught  the  scent  of  carnage,  and  came  to  gloat  on  the  butchery 
iu  which  he  could  no  longer  take  an  active  part.  His  loath- 
some features  were  again  daily  seen,  and  his  well  known 
"  Ah  Laard,  ah  Laard !  "  was  again  daily  heard  in  the  lobbies 
and  in  the  gallery.*  The  House  fell  first  on  the  renegades  of 
the  late  reign.  Of  those  renegades  the  Earls  of  Peterborough 
and  Salisbury  were  the  highest  in  rank,  but  were  also  the  low- 
est in  intellect :  for  Salisbury  had  always  been  an  idiot ;  and 
Peterborough  had  long  been  a  dotard.  It  was  however  re- 
solved by  the  Commons  that  both  had,  by  joining  the  Church 
of  Rome,  committed  high  treason,  and  that  both  should  be  im- 
peached, f  A  message  to  that  effect  was  sent  to  the  Lords. 
Poor  old  Peterborough  was  instantly  taken  into  custody  and 
was  sent  tottering  on  a  crutch,  and  wrapped  up  in  woollen  stuffs, 
to  the  Tower.  The  next  day  Salisbury  was  brought  to  the  bar  of 
his  peers.  He  muttered  something  about  his  youth  and  his  for- 

*  Koger  North's  Life  of  Dudley  North, 
t  Commons'  Journals,  Oct.  26,  1639. 


458  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

eign  education,  and  was  then  sent  to  bear  Peterborough  com- 
pany.* The  Commons  had  meanwhile  passed  on  to  offenders 
of  humbler  station  and  better  understanding.  Sir  Edward 
Hales  was  brought  before  them.  He  had  doubtless,  by  holding 
office  in  defiance  of  the  Test  Act,  incurred  heavy  penalties. 
But  these  penalties  fell  far  short  of  what  the  revengeful  spirit 
of  the  victorious  party  demanded ;  and  he  was  committed  as 
a  traitor.f  Then  Obadiah  Walker  was  led  in.  He  behaved 
with  a  pusillanimity  and  disingenuousness,  which  deprived 
him  of  all  claim  to  respect  or  pity.  He  protested  that  he 
had  never  changed  his  religion,  that  his  opinions  had  always 
been  and  still  were  those  of  some  highly  respectable  divines  of 
the  Church  of  England,  and  that  there  were  .points  on  which 
he  differed  from  the  Papists.  In  spite  of  this  quibbling,  he 
was  pronounced  guilty  of  high  treason,  and  sent  to  prison. J 
Then  Castlemaine  was  put  to  the  bar,  interrogated,  and  com- 
mitted under  a  warrant  which  charged  him  with  the  capital 
crime  of  trying  to  reconcile  the  kingdom  to  the  Church  of 
Rome.§ 

In  the  meantime  the  Lords  had  appointed  a  Committee  to 
enquire  who  were  answerable  for. the  deaths  of  Russell,  of  Sid- 
ney, and  of  some  other  eminent  "Wliigs.  Of  this  Committee, 
which  was  popularly  called  the  Murder  Committee,  the  Earl  of 
Stamford,  a  Whig  who  had  been  deeply  concerned  in  the  plots 
formed  by  his  party  against  the  Stuarts,  was  chairman. ||  The 
books  of  the  Council  were  inspected:  the  clerks  of  the  Council 
were  examined  :  some  facts  disgraceful  to  the  Judges,  to  the 
Solicitors  of  the  Treasury,  to  the  witnesses  for  the  Crown,  and 
to  the  keepers  of  the  state  prisons,  were  elicited :  but  about  the 
packing  of  the  juries  no  evidence  could  be  obtained.  The 
Sheriffs  kept  their  own  counsel.  Sir  Dudley  North,  in  particu- 
lar, underwent  a  most  severe  cross  examination  with  character- 

*  Lords'  Journals,  October  26  and  27, 1C89. 

t  Commons'  Journals,  Oct.  26,  1GS9. 

t  Commons'  Journals,  Oct.  26,  1689 ;  ^Wood's  Athenae  Oxoiiienses ;  Dod'a 
Church  History,  VIII.  ii.  3. 

§  Commons'  Journals,  October  28, 1689.  The  proceedings  will  be  found  in  th« 
collection  of  State  Trials. 

II  Lords'  Journals,  Nov.  2  and  6,  1639. 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  459 

istic  clearness  of  head  and  firmness  of  temper,  and  steadily 
asserted  that  he  had  never  troubled  himself  about  the  political 
opinions  of  the  persons  whom  he  put  on  any  panel,  but  had 
merely  enquired  whether  they  were  substantial  citizens.  He 
was  undoubtedly  lying ;  and  so  some  of  the  Whig  peers  told 
him  in  very  plain  words  and  in  very  loud  tones:  but,  though 
they  were  morally  certain  of  his  guilt,  they  could  find  no  proofs 
which  would  support  a  criminal  charge  against  him.  The  in- 
delible stain  however  remains  on  his  memory,  and  is  still  a  sub- 
ject of  lamentation  to  those  who,  while  loathing  his  dishonesty 
and  cruelty,  cannot  forget  that  he  was  one  of  the  most  original, 
profound,  and  accurate  thinkers  of  his  age.* 

Halifax,  more  fortunate  than  Dudley  North,  was  completely 
cleared,  not  only  from  legal,  but  also  from  moral  guilt.  He 
was  the  chief  object  of  attack ;  and  yet  a  severe  examination 
brought  nothing  to  light  that  was  not  to  his  honour.  Tillotson 
was  called  as  a  witness.  He  swore  that  he  had  been  the  channel 
of  communication  between  Halifax  and  Russell  when  Russell 
was  a  prisoner  in  the  Tower.  "  My  Lord  Halifax, ".said  the 
Doctor, "  showed  a  very  compassionate  concern  for  my  Lord  Rus- 
sell :  and  my  Lord  Russell  charged  me  with  his  last  thanks  for 
my  Lord  Halifax's  humanity  and  kindness."  It  was  proved  that 
the  unfortunate  Duke  of  Monmouth  had  borne  similar  testimony 
to  Halifax's  good  nature.  One  hostile  witness  indeed  was  pro- 
duced, John  Hampden,  whose  mean  supplications  and  enormous 
bribes  had  saved  his  neck  from  the  halter.  He  was  now  a 
powerful  and  prosperous  man  :  he  was  a  leader  of  the  dominant 
party  in  the  House  of  Commons  ;  and  yet  he  was  one  of  the 
most  unhappy  beings  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  The  recollection 
of  the  pitiable  figure  which  he  had  made  at  the  tar  of  the  Old 
Bailey  embittered  his  temper  and  impelled  him  to  avenge  him- 
self without  mercy  on  those  who  had  directly  or  indirectly 
contributed  to  his  humiliation.  Of  all  the  Whigs  he  was  the 
most  intolerant  and  the  most  obstinately  hostile  to  all  plans  of 
amnesty.  The  consciousness  that  he  had  disgraced  himself 
made  him  jealous  of  his  dignity  and  quick  to  take  offence.  He 

*  Lords'  Journals,  Dec.  20, 1689 ;  Life  of  Dudley  North. 


460  HISTORY   OP   ENGLAND. 

constantly  paraded  his  services  and  his  sufferings,  as  if  he  hoped 
that  this  ostentatious  display  would  hide  from  others  the  ttain 
which  nothing  could  hide  from  himself.  Having  during  many 
months  harangued  vehemently  against  Halifax  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  he  now  came  to  swear  against  Halifax  before  the 
Lords.  The  scene  was  curious.  The  witness  represented  him- 
self as  having  saved  his  country,  as  having  planned  the  Revolu- 
tion, as  having  placed  Their  Majesties  on  the  throne.  He  then 
gave  evidence  intended  to  show  that  his  Jife  had  been  endan- 
gered by  the  machinations  of  the  Lord  Privy  Seal  :  but  that 
evidence  missed  the  mark  at  which  it  was  aimed,  and  recoiled 
on  him  from  whom  it  proceeded.  Hampden  was  forced  to  ac- 
knowledge that  he  had  sent  his  wife  to  implore  the  intercession 
of  the  man  whom  he  was  now  persecuting.  "  Is  it  not  strange," 
asked  Halifax,  "  that  you  should  have  requested  the  good  offices 
of  one  whose  arts  had  brought  your  head  into  peril  ?  "  "  Not  at 
all,"  said  Hampden  :  "  to  whom  was  I  to  apply  except  to  the 
men  who  were  in  power  ?  I  applied  to  Lord  Jeffreys  :  I  ap- 
plied to  Father  Petre ;  and  I  paid  them  six  thousand  pounds 
for  their  services."  "  But  did  Lord  Halifax  take  any  money  ?  " 
"  No  :  I  cannot  say  that  he  did."  "  And,  Mr.  Hampden,  did 
not  you  afterwards  send  your  wife  to  thank  him  for  his  kind- 
ness ?  "  "  Yes  :  I  believe  I  did,"  answered  Hampden  :  "  but  I 
know  of  no  solid  effects  of  that  kindness.  If  there  were  any, 
I  should  be  obliged  to  my  Lord  to  tell  me  what  they  were." 
Disgraceful  as  had  been  the  appearance  which  this  degenerate 
heir  of  an  illustrious  name  had  made  at  the  Old  Bailey,  the  ap- 
pearance which  he  made  before  the  Committee  of  Murder  was 
more  disgraceful  still.*  It  is  pleasing  to  know  that  a  person 
who  had  been  far  more  cruelly  wronged  than  he,  but  whose 
nature  differed  widely  from  his,  the  nobleminded  Lady  Russell, 
remonstrated  against  the  injustice  with  which  the  extreme  Whigs 
treated  Halifax.! 

*  Tho  report  is  In  the  Lords'  Journals,  Dec.  20, 1C89.  Hampden's  examination 
was  on  the  18th  of  November. 

t  This,  I  think ,  is  clear,  from  a  letter  of  Lady  Montague  to  Lady  Russell,  dated 
Dec.  23, 1689,  three  days  after  the  Committee  of  Murder  had  reported, 


WILLIAM  AND   MARY.  461 

The  malice  of  John  Hampden,  however,  was  unwearied  and 
unabashed.  A  few  days  later,  in  a  committee  of  the  whole 
House  of  Commons,  on  the  state  of  the  nation,  he  made  a 
bitter  speech,  in  which  he  ascribed  all  the  disasters  of  the 
year  to  the  influence  of  the  men  who  had,  in  the  day  of  the 
Exclusion  Bill,  been  censured  by  Parliaments,  of  the  men  who 
had  attempted  to  mediate  between  James  and  William.  The 
King,  he  said,  ought  to  dismiss  from  his  counsels  and  presence 
all  the  three  noblemen  who  had  been  sent  to  negotiate  with  him 
at  Hungerford.  He  went  on  to  speak  of  the  danger  of  employ- 
ing men  of  republican  principles.  He  doubtless  alluded  to  the 
chief  object  of  his  implacable  malignity.  For  Halifax,  though 
from  temper  averse  to  violent  changes,  was  well  known  to  be  in 
speculation  a  republican,  and  often  talked,  with  much  ingenuity 
and  pleasantry,  against  hereditary  monarchy.  The  only  effect, 
however,  of  the  reflection  now  thrown  on  him  was  to  call  forth 
a  roar  of  derision.  That  a  Hampden,  that  the  grandson  of  the 
great  leader  of  the  Long  Parliament,  that  a  man  who  boasted 
of  having  conspired  with  Algernon  Sidney  against  the  royal 
House,  should  use  the  word  republican  as  a  term  of  -reproach! 
When  the  storm  of  laughter  had  subsided,  several  members 
stood  up  to  vindicate  the  accused  statesmen.  Seymour  declared 
that,  much  as  he  disapproved  of  the  manner  in  which  the  ad- 
ministration had  lately  been  conducted,  he  could  not  concur  in 
the  vote  which  John  Hampden  had  proposed.  "  Look  where 
you  will,"  he  said,  "  to  Ireland,  to  Scotland,  to  the  navy,  to  the 
army,  you  will  find  abundant  proofs  of  mismanagement.  If 
the  war  is  still  to  be  conducted  by  the  same  hands,  we  can  ex- 
pect nothing  but  a  recurrence  of  the  same  disasters.  But  I  am 
not  prepared  to  proscribe  men  for  the  best  thing  that  they  ever 
did  in  their  lives,  to  proscribe  men  for  attempting  to  avert  a 
revolution  by  timely  mediation."  It  was  justly  said  by  an- 
other speaker  that  Halifax  and  Nottingham  had  been  sent  to 
the  Dutch  camp  because  they  possessed  the  confidence  of  the 
nation,  because  they  were  universally  known  to  be  hostile  to 
the  dispensing  power,  to  the  Popish  religion,  and  to  the  French 
ascendency.  It  was  at  length  resolved  that  the  King  should  be 


462  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

requested  in  general  terms  to  find  out  and  remove  the  authors 
of  the  late  miscarriages.*  A  committee  was  appointed  to  pre- 
pare an  address.  John  Hampden  was  chairman,  and  drew  up 
a  representation  in  terms  so  bitter  that,  when  it  was  reported 
to  the  House,  his  own  father  expressed  disapprobation,  and  one 
member  exclaimed  :  "  This  an  address  !  It  is  a  libel."  After  a 
sharp  debate,  the  Address  was  recommitted,  and  was  not  again 
mentioned.! 

Indeed,  the  animosity  which  a  large  part  of  the  House  had 
felt  against  Halifax  was  beginning  to  abate.  It  was  known 
that,  though  he  had  not  yet  formally  delivered  up  the  Privy 
Seal,  he  had  ceased  to  be  a  confidential  adviser  of  the  Crown. 
The  power  which  he  had  enjoyed  during  the  first  months  of 
the  reign  of  William  and  Mary  had  passed  to  the  more  daring, 
more  unscrupulous,  and  more  practical  Caermarthen,  against 
whose  influence  Shrewsbury  contended  in  vain.  Personally 
Shrewsbury  stood  high  in  the  royal  favour  :  but  he  was  a  leader 
of  the  Whigs,  and,  like  all  leaders  of  parties,  was  frequently 
pushed  forward  against  his  will  by  those  who  seemed  to  follow 
him.  He  was  himself  inclined  to  a  mild  and  moderate  .policy : 
but  he  had  not  sufficient  firmness  to  withstand  the  clamourous 
importunity  with  which  such  politicians  as  John  Howe  and 
John  Hampden  demanded  vengeance  on  their  enemies.  His 
advice  had  therefore,  at  this  time,  little  weight  with  his  master, 
who  neither  loved  the  Tories  nor  trusted  them,  but  who  was 
fully  determined  not  to  proscribe  them. 

Meanwhile  the  Whigs,  conscious  that  they  had  lately  sunk 
in  the  opinion  both  of  the  King  and  of  the  nation,  resolved  on 
making  a  bold  and  crafty  attempt  to  become  independent  of 
•  both.  A  perfect  account  of  that  -attempt  Cannot  be  constructed 
out  of  the  scanty  and  wildly  dispersed  materials  which  have 
come  down  to  us.  Yet  the  story,  as  it  may  still  be  put  together, 
is  both  interesting  and  instructive. 

A  bill  for  restoring  the  rights  of  those  corporations  which 
had  surrendered  their  charters  to  the  Crown  during  the  last  two 

*  Commons'  Journals,  Dec.  14,  1689 :  Grey's  Debates  ;  Boyer's  Life  of  William, 
t  Commoi.B'  Journals,  Dec.  21 ;  Grey's  Debates:  Oldmixon. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  463 

reigns  had  been  brought  into  the  House  of  Commons,  had  been 
received  with  general  applause  by  men  of  all  parties,  had  been 
read  twice,  and  had  been  referred  to  a  select  committee,  of  which 
Somers  was  chairman.  On  the  second  of  January  Somers 
brought  up  the  report.  The  attendance  of  Tories  was  scanty; 
for,  as  no  important  discussion  was  expected,  many  country 
gentlemen  had  left  town,  and  were  keeping  a  merry  Christmas 
by  the  blazing  chimneys  of  their  manor  houses.  The  muster  of 
zealous  Whigs  was  strong.  As  soon  as  the  bill  had  been  re- 
ported, Sacheverell,  renowned  in  the  stormy  Parliaments  of  the 
reign  of  Charles  the  Second  as  one  of  the  ablest  and  keen- 
est of  the  Exclusionists,  stood  up  and  moved  to  add  a  clause 
providing  that  every  municipal  functionary  who  had  in  any  man- 
ner been  a  party  to  the  surrendering  of  the  franchises  of  a 
borough  should  be  incapable  for  seven  years  of  holding  any 
office  in  that  borough.  The  constitution  of  almost  every  cor- 
porate town  in  England  had  been  remodelled  during  that  hot  fit 
of  loyalty  which  followed  the  detection  of  the  Rye  House  Plot; 
and,  iu  almost  every  corporate  town,  the  voice  of  the  Tories 
had  been  for  delivering  up  the  charter,  and  for  trusting  every- 
thing to  the  paternal  care  of  the  Sovereign.  The  effect  of 
Sacheverell's  clause,  therefore,  was  to  make  some  thousands  of 
the  most  opulent  and  highly  considered  men  in  the  kingdom  in- 
capable, during  seven  years,  of  bearing  any  part  in  the  govern- 
ment of  the  places  in  which  they  resided,  and  to  secure  to  the 
Whig  party,  during  seven  years,  an  overwhelming  influence  in 
borough  elections.  ' 

The  minority  exclaimed  against  the  gross  injustice  of  pass- 
ing, rapidly,  and  by  surprise,  at  a  season  when  London  was 
empty,  a  law  of  the  highest  importance,  a  law  which  retrospec- 
tively inflicted  a  severe  penalty  on  many  hundreds  of  respectable 
gentlemen,  a  law  which  would  call  forth  the  strongest  passions 
in  every  towu  from  Berwick  to  Saint  Ives,  a  law  which  must 
have  a  serious  effect  on  the  composition  of  the  House  itself. 
Common  decency  required  at  least  an  adjournment.  An  adjourn- 
ment was  moved  :  but  the  motion  was  rejected  by  a  hundred  and 
twenty-seven  votes  to  eighty-nine.  The  question  was  then  put  that 


464  HISTORY    OP   ENGLAND. 

Sacheverell's  clause  should  stand  part  of  the  bill,  and  was  carried 
by  a  hundred  and  thirty-three  to  sixty-eight.  Sir  Robert  Howard 
immediately  moved  that  every  person  who,  being  under  Sache- 
verell's  clause  disqualified  for  municipal  office,  should  presume 
to  take  any  such  office,  should  forfeit  five  hundred  pounds,  and 
should  be  for  life  incapable  of  holding  any  public  employment 
whatever.  The  Tories  did  not  venture  to  divide.*  The  rules 
of  the  House  put  it  iu  the  power  of  a  minority  to  obstruct  the 
progress  of  a  bill ;  and  this  was  assuredly  one  of  the  very  rare 
occasions  on  which  that  power  would  •have  been  with  great  pro- 
priety exerted.  It  does  not  appear  however  that  the  parlia- 
mentary tacticians  of  the  seventeenth  century  were  aware  of  the 
extent  to  which  a  small  number  of  members  can,  without  vio- 
lating any  form,  retard  the  course  of  business. 

It  was  immediately  resolved  that  the  bill,  enlarged  by  Sache- 
verell's  and  Howard's  clauses,  should  be  engrossed.  The  most 
vehement  Whigs  were  bent  on  finally  passing  it  within  forty- 
eight  hours.  The  Lords,  indeed,  were  rot  Lkely  to  regard  it 
very  favourably.  But  it  should  seem  that  some  desperate  men 
were  prepared  to  withhold  the  supplies  till  it  should  pass,  nay, 
even  to  tack  it  to  the  bill  of  supply,  and  thus  to  place  the  Up- 
per House  under  the  necessity  of  either  consenting  to  a  vast  pro- 
scription of  the  Tories  or  refusing  to  the  government  the  means 
of  carrying  on  the  war.f  There  were  Whigs,  however,  honest 
enough  to  wish  that  fair  play  should  be  given  to  the  hostile  party 
and  prudent  enough  to  know  that  an  advantage  obtained  by  vio- 
lence and  cunning  could  not  be  permanent.  These  men  insisted 
that  at  least  a  week  should  be  suffered  to  elapse  before  the  third 
reading,  and  carried  their  point.  Their  less  scrupulous  associates 
complained  bitterly  that  the  good  cause  was  betrayed.  What  new 
laws  of  war  were  these  ?  Why  was  chivalrous  courtesy  to  be 
shown  to  foes  who  thought  no  stratagem  immoral,  and  who  had 

*  Commons'  Journals,  Jan.  2,  1G89-90. 

t  Thus,  1  think,  must  be  understood  some  remarkable  words  in  a  letter  writ- 
ten by  William  to  Portland,  on  the  day  after  Sacheverell's  bold  and  unexpected 
move.  William  calculates  the  amount  of  the  supplies  and  then  says  :  "  S'ils  ii'y 
mettent  des  conditions  que  vous  savez,  c'est  une  bonne  affaire  :  mais  les  WiggeB 
sout  si  glorieux  d'avoir  vaincu  qu'ils  eutreprendront  tout." 


"WILLIAM    AND    MART.  465 

never  given  quarter  ?  And  what  had  been  done  that  was  not  in 
strict  accordance  with  the  law  of  Parliament  ?  That  law  knew 
nothing  of  short  notices  and  long  notices,  of  thin  houses  and  full 
houses.  It  was  the  business  of  a  representative  of  the  people 
to  be  in  his  place.  If  he  chose  to  shoot  and  guzzle  at  his  coun- 
try seat  when  important  business  was  under  consideration  at 
Westminster,  what  right  had  he  to  murmur  because  more  up- 
right and  laborious  servants  of  the  public  passed,  in  his  absence, 
a  bill  which  appeared  to  them  necessary  to  the  public  safety  ? 
As  however  a  postponement  of  a  few  days  appeared  to  be  in- 
evitable, those  who  had  intended  to  gain  the  victory  by  stealing 
a  march  now  disclaimed  that 'intention.  They  solemnly  assured 
the  King,  who  could  not  help  showing  some  displeasure  at  their 
conduct,  and  who  felt  much  more  displeasure  than  he  showed, 
that  they  had  owed  nothing  to  surprise,  and  that  they  were 
quite  certain  of  a  majority  in  the  fullest  house.  Sacheverell  is 
said  to  have  declared  with  great  warmth  that  he  would  stake 
his  seat  on  the  issue,  and  that  if  he  found  himself  mistaken  he 
would  never  show  his  face  in  Parliament  again.  Indeed,  the 
general  opinion  at  first  was  that  the  Whigs  would  win  the  day. 
But  it  soon  became  clear  that  the  fight  would  be  a  hard  one. 
The  mails  had  carried  out  along  all  the  high  roads  the  tidings 
that,  on  the  second  of  January,  the  Commons  had  agreed  to  a 
retrospective  penal  law  against  the  whole  Tory  party,  and  that, 
on  the  tenth,  that  law  would  be  considered  for  the  last  time. 
The  whole  kingdom  was  moved  from  Northumberland  to  Corn- 
wall. A  hundred  knights  and  squires  left  their  halls  hung  with 
mistletoe  and  holly,  and  their  boards  groaning  with  brawn  and 
plum  porridge,  and  rode  up  post  to  town,  cursing  the  short  days, 
the  cold  weather,  the  miry  roads,  and  the  villanons  Whigs. 
The  Whigs,  too,  brought  up  reinforcements,  but  not  to  the 
same  extent ;  for  the  clauses  were  generally  unpopular,  and 
not  without  good  cause.  Assuredly  no  reasonable  man  of  any 
party  will  deny  that  the  Tories,  in  surrendering  to  the  Crown 
all  the  municipal  franchises  of  the  realm,  and,  with  those  fran- 
chises, the  power  of  altering  the  constitution  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  committed  a  great  fault.  But  in  that  fault  the  nation 
VOL.  III.— 30 


4C6  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

itself  had  been  an  accomplice.  If  the  Mayors  and  Aldermen 
whom  it  was  now  proposed  to  punish  had,  when  the  tide  of  loyal 
enthusiasm  ran  high,  sturdily  refused  to  comply  with  the  wish 
of  their  Sovereign,  they  would  have  been  pointed  at  in  the 
street  as  Roundhead  knaves,  preached  at  by  the  Rector,  lam- 
pooned in  ballads,  and  probably  burned  in  effigy  before  their 
own  doors.  That  a  community  should  be  hurried  into  errors 
alternately  by  fear  of  tyranny  and  by  fear  of  anarchy  is  doubt- 
less a  great  evil.  But  the  remedy  for  that  evil  is  not  to  punish 
for  such  errors  some  persons  who  have  merely  erred  with  the 
rest,  and  who  have  since  repented  with  the  rest.  Nor  ought  it 
to  have  been  forgotten  that  the  offenders  against  whom  Sache- 
verell's  clause  was  directed  had,  in  1688,  made  large  atonement 
for  the  misconduct  of  which  they  had  been  guilty  in  1683. 
They  had,  as  a  class,  stood  up  firmly  against  the  dispensing 
power  ;  and  most  of  them  had  actually  been  turned  out  of  their 
municipal  offices  by  James  for  refusing  to  support  his  policy. 
It  is  not  strange  therefore  that  the  attempt  to  inflict  on  all  these 
men  without  exception  a  degrading  punishment  should  have 
raised  such  a  storm  of  public  indignation  as  many  Whig  mem- 
bers of  parliament  were  unwilling  to  face. 

As  the  decisive  conflict  drew  near,  and  as  the  muster  of  the 
Tories  became  hourly  stronger  and  stronger,  the  uneasiness  of 
Sacheverell  and  of  his  confederates  increased.  They  found 
that  they  could  hardly  hope  for  a  complete  victory.  They  must 
make  some  concession.  They  must  propose  to  recommit  the 
bill.  They  must  declare  themselves  willing  to  consider  whether 
any  distinction  could  be  made  between  the  chief  offenders  and  the 
multitudes  who  had  been  misled  by  evil  example.  But  as  the 
spirit  of  one  party  fell  the  spirit  of  the  other  rose.  The  Tories, 
glowing  with  resentment  which  was  but  too  just,  were  resolved 
to  listen  to  no  terms  of  compromise. 

The  tenth  of  January  came;  and, before  the  late  daybreak 
of  that  season,  the  House  was  crowded.  More  than  a  hundred 
and  sixty  members  had  come  up  to  town  within  a  week.  From 
dawn  till  the  candles  had  burned  down  to  their  sockets  the  ranks 
kept  unbroken  order :  and  few  members  left  their  seats  except 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  467 

for  a  minute  to  take  a*  crust  of  bread  or  a  glass  of  claret.  Mes- 
sengers were  in  waiting  to  carry  the  result  to  Kensington, 
where  William,  though  shaken  by  a  violent  cough,  sate  up  till 
midnight,  anxiously  expecting  the  news,  and  writing  to  Port- 
land, whom  he  had  sent  on  an  important  mission  to  the  Hague. 
The  only  remaining  account  of  the  debate  is  defective  and 
confused:  but  from  that  account  it  appears  that  the  excitement 
was  great.  Sharp  things  were  said.  One  young  "Whig  member 
used  language  so  hot  that  he  was  in  danger  of  being  called  to 
the  bar.  Some  reflections  were  thrown  on  the  Speaker  for 
allowing  too  much  licence  to  his  own  friends.  But  in  truth  it 
mattered  little  whether  he  called  transgressors  to  order  or  not. 
The  House  had  long  been  quite  unmanageable  :  and  veteran 
members  bitterly  regretted  the  old  gravity  of  debate  and  the  old 
authority  of  the  chair.*  That  Somers  disapproved  of  the 
violence  of  the  party  to  which  he  belonged  may  be  inferred, 
both  from  the  whole  course  of  his  public  life,  and  from  the  very 
significant  fact  that,  though  he  had  charge  of  the  Corporation 
Bill,  he  did  not  move  the  penal  clauses,  but  left  that  ungracious 
office  to  men  more  impetuous  and  less  sagacious  than  himself. 
lie  did  not  however  abandon  his  allies  in  this  emergency,  but 
spoke  for  them,  and  tried  to  make  the  best  of  a  very  bad  case. 
The  House  divided  several  times.  On  the  first  division  a  hun- 
dred and  seventy-four  voted  with  Sacheverell,  a  hundred  and 
seventy-nine  against  him.  Still  the  battle  was  stubbornly  kept 
up  ;  but  the  majority  increased  from  five  to  ten,  from  ten  to 
twelve,  and  from  twelve  to  eighteen.  Then  at  length,  after 
a  stormy  sitting  of  fourteen  hours,  the  Whigs  yielded.  It  was 
near  midnight  when,  to  the  unspeakable  joy  and  triumph  of  the 
Tories,  the  clerk  tore  away  from  the  parchment  on  which  the 
bill  had  been  engrossed  the  odious  clauses  of  Sacheverell  and 

Howard.f 

*  "  Tha  authority  of  the  chair,  the  awe  and  reverence  to  order,  and  the  due 
method  of  d  -bates  being  irrecoverably  lost  by  the  disorder  and  tumultuot'.sness 
of  tha  House."— Sir  J.  Travor  to  the  King,  Appendix  to  Dalrymple's  Memoirs, 
Part  ii.  Boo'.:  4. 

t  Commons'  Journals,  Jan.  10,  1GS9-90.  I  have  done  my  best  to  frame  an  ac- 
connt  of  this  contest  out  of  very  dafec'ive  materials.  Burnet's  nanative  contains 
more  blunders  thau  lines.  He  evidently  trusted  to  his  memory,  and  was  com- 


46S  H1STOKY    OP    ENGLAND. 

V 

Emboldened  by  this  great  victory,  the  Tories  made  an 
attempt  to  push  forward  the  Indemnity  Bill  which  had  lain 
many  weeks  neglected  on  the  table.*  But  the  Whigs,  notwith- 
standing their  recent  defeat,  were  still  the  majority  of  the 
House ;  and  many  members,  who  had  shrunk  from  the  unpopu- 
larity which  they  would  have  incurred  by  supporting  the  Sach- 
everell  clause  and  the  Howard  clause,  were  perfectly  willing  to 
assist  in  retarding  the  general  pardon.  They  still  propounded 
their  favourite  dilemma.  How,  they  asked,  was  it  possible  to 
defend  this  project  of  amnesty  without  condemning  the  Revolu- 
tion ?  Could  it  be  contended  that  crimes  which  had  been  grave 
enough  to  justify  rebellion  had  not  been  grave  enough  to  deserve 
punishment  ?  And,  if  those  crimes  were  of  such  magnitude  that 
they  could  justly  be  visited  on  the  Sovereign  whom  the  Consti- 
tution had  exempted  from  responsibility,  on  what  principle  was 
immunity  to  be  granted  to  his  advisers  and  tools,  who  were 
beyond  all  doubt  responsible  ?  One  facetious  member  put  this 
argument  in  a  singular  form.  He  contrived  to  place  in  the 
Speaker's  chair  a  paper  which,  when  examined,  appeared  to  be 
a  Bill  of  Indemnity  for  King  James,  with  a  sneering  preamble 
about  the  mercy  which  had,  since  the  Revolution,  been  extended 
to  more  heinous  offenders,  and  about  the  Indulgence  due  to  a 


pletely  deceived  by  it.  My  chief  authorities  are  the  Journals  ;  Grey's  Debates  ; 
William's  Letters  to  Portland  ;  the  Despatches  of  Van  Litters  ;  a  Letter  concern- 
ing the  Disabling  Clauses,  lately  offered  to  the  House  of  Commons,  for  regulating 
Corporations,  16!)0  ;  The  True  Friends  to  Corporations  vindicated,  in  an  ar.swer 
to  a  letter  concealing  the  Disabling  Clauses,  1G90  ;  and  Some  Queries  concerning 
the  Election  of  Members  for  the  en.niing  Parliament,  1COO.  To  thi.i  last  pamphlet 
is  appendad  a  list  of  tho.;e  who  voted  for  the  Sacheverell  clause.  See  also  Claren- 
don's Diary,  Jan.  10, 1089-90,  and  the  Third  Part  of  the  Caveat  against  the  \VLi~s,- 
1712.  I  will  quote  the  last  sentences  of  Will'.am's  Letter  of  the  ir.th  of  January. 
The  news  of  the  first  division  only  had  reached  Kensington.  ''Ilest  a  piesnnt 
onze  eures  de  jiuit,  et  a  dix  cures  la  Chambre  Basse  estoit  encore  ensemble. 
Aiusi  Je  ne  vous  puis  escrlve  parcette  ordinaire  Tissue  de  I'aiTaire.  Les  previos 
questions  les  Tories  1'ont  emport6  de  cinq  vois.  Ainsi  vous  pouvez  voir  quo  la 
chos;  estblen  disputee.  J'ay  si  grand  somiel,  et  mo:i  toux  m'incoaiode  que  ja 
ne  vous  en  saurez  dire  d'avantaje.  Jusques  a  mourir  a  vons." 

On  the  same  night  Aran  Citters  wrote  to  the  States  General.     The  debite.  he 
said,  hail  bean  very  sharp.    Ths  design  of  tha  Whigs,  whom  he  calls  the  Fres^'v- 
teriayis,  had  been  iiothi-ig  less  than  to  exclude  their  rr-ponenta  from  all  oSices, 
and  to  obtain  for  themselves  the  exclusive  possession  of  power. 
•     *  Commons'  Journals,  January  11, 1689-90. 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  469 

King,  who,  in  oppressing  his  people,  had  only  acted  after  the 
fashion  of  all  Kings.* 

On  the  same  clay  on  which  this  mock  Bill  of  Indemnity  dis- 
turbed the  gravity  of  the  Commons,  it  was  moved  that  the 
House  should  go  into  Committee  on  the  real  Bill.  The  Whigs 
threw  the  motion  out  by  a  hundred  and  ninety-three  votes  to  a 
hundred  and  fifty-six.  They  then  proceeded  to  resolve  that  a 
bill  of  pains  and  penalties  against  delinquents  should  be  forth- 
with brought  in,  and  engrafted  on  the  Bill  of  Indemnity  .f 

A  few  hours  later  a  vote  passed  which  showed  more  clearly 
than  anything  that  had  yet  taken  place  how  little  chance  there 
was  that  the  public  mind  would  be  speedily  quieted  by  an  am- 
nesty. Few  persons  stood  higher  in  the  estimation  of  the  Tory 
party  than  Sir  Robert  Sawyer.  He  was  a  man  of  ample  fortune 
and  aristocratical  connections,  of  orthodox  opinions  and  regular 
life,  an  able  and  experienced  lawyer,  a  well  read  scholar,  and, 
in  spite  of  a  little  pomposity,  a  good  speaker.  He  had  been 
Attorney  General  at  the  time  of  the  detection  of  the  Rye  House 
Plot :  had  been  employed  for  the  Crown  in  the  prosecutions 
which  followed  ;  and  he  had  conducted  those  prosecutions  with 
an  eagerness  which  would,  in  our  time,  be  called  cruelty  by  all 
parties,  but  which,  in  his  own  time,  and  to  his  own  party,  seemed 
to  be  merely  laudable  zeal.  His  friends  indeed  asserted  that  he 
was  conscientious  even  to  scrupulosity  in  matters  of  life  and 
death  $  :  but  this  is  an  eulogy  which  persons  who  bring  the 
feelings  of  the  nineteenth  century  to  the  study  of  the  State  Trials 
of.  the  seventeenth  century  will  have  some  difficulty  in  under- 
standing. The  best  excuse  which  can  be  made  for  this  part  of 
his  life  is  that  the  stain  of  innocent  blood  was  common  to  him 
with  almost  all  the  eminent  public  men  of  those  evil  days.  When 
we  blame  him  for  prosecuting  Russell,  we  must  not  forget  that 
Russell  had  prosecuted  Stafford. 

Great  as  Sawyer's  offences  were,  he  had  made  great  atone- 
ment for  them.  He  had  stood  up  manfully  against  Popery  and 
despotism  :  he  had,  in  the  very  presence  chamber,  positively 

*  Luttrell's  Diary,  Jan.  16,  1690 ;  Van  Citters  to  the  States  General  Jan.  21-31. 
t  Commons'  Journals,  Jan.  16,  1689-90. 
t  Roger  North's  Life  of  Guildford. 


470  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

refused  to  draw  warrants  in  contravention  of  Acts  of  Parlia- 
ment :  he  had  resigned  his  lucrative  office  rather  than  appear  in 
Westminster  Hall  as  the  champion  of  the  dispensing  power :  he 
had  been  the  leading  counsel  for  the  seven  Bishops  ;  and  he  had 
on  the  day  of  their  trial,  done  his  duty  ably,  honestly,  and  fear- 
lessly. He  was  therefore  a  favourite  with  High  Churchmen, 
and  might  be  thought  to  have  fairly  earned  his  pardon  from  the 
Whigs.  But  the  Whigs  were  not  in  a  pardoning  mood ;  and 
Sawyer  was  now  called  to  account  for  his  conduct  in  the  case  of 
Sir  Thomas  Armstrong. 

If  Armstrong  was  not  belied,  he  was  deep  in  the  worst  secrets 
of  the  Rye  House  Plot,  and  was  one  of  those  who  undertook  to 
slay  the  two  royal  brothers.  When  the  conspiracy  was  dis- 
covered, he  fled  to  the  Continent  and  was  outlawed.  The  magis- 
trates of  Leyden  were  induced  by  a  bribe  to  deliver  him  up. 
He  was  hurried  on  board  of  an  English  ship,  carried  to  London, 
and  brought  before  the  King's  Bench.  Sawyer  moved  the  Court 
to  award  execution  on  the  outlawry.  Armstrong  represented 
that  a  year  had  not  yet  elapsed  since  he  had  been  outlawed,  and 
that,  by  an  Act  passed  in  the  reign  of  Edward  the  Sixth,  an 
outlaw  who  yielded  himself  within  the  year  was  entitled  to  plead 
Not  Guilty,  and  to  put  himself  on  his  country.  To  this  it  was 
answered  that  Armstrong  had  not  yielded  himself,  that  he  had 
been  dragged  to  the  bar  a  prisoner,  and  that  he  had  no  right  to 
claim  a  privilege  which  was  evidently  meant  to  be  given  only  to 
persons  who  voluntarily  rendered  themselves  up  to  public  justice. 
Jeffreys  and  the  other  judges  unanimously  overruled  Armstrong's 
objection,  and  granted  the  award  of  execution.  Then  followed 
one  of  the  most  terrible  of  the  many  terrible  scenes  which,  in 
those  times,  disgraced  our  Courts.  The  daughter  of  the  unhappy 
man  was  at  his  side.  "  My  Lord,"  she  cried  out,  "  you  will  not 
murder  my  father.  This  is  murdering  a  man.''  "  How  now  ?  " 
roared  the  Chief  Justice.  "  Who  is  this  woman  ?  Take  her, 
Marshal.  Take  her  away."  She  was  forced  out,  crying  as  she 
went,  "  God  Almighty's  judgments  light  on  you  !  "  "  God 
Almighty's  judgments,"  said  Jeffreys,  "  will  light  on  traitors. 
Thank  God,  I  am  clamour  proof."  When  she  was  gone,  her 


•WILLIAM   AND    MART.  471 

father  again  insisted  on  what  he  conceived  to  be  his  right.  "  I 
ask,"  he  said,  "  only  the  benefit  of  the  law."  "  And,  by  the 
grace  of  God,  you  shall  have  it,"  said  the  judge.  "  Mr.  Sheriff, 
see  that  execution  be  done  on  Friday  next.  There  is  the  benefit 
of  the  law  for  you."  On  the  following  Friday,  Armstrong  was 
hanged,  drawn  and  quartered  ;  and  his  head  was  placed  over 
Westminster  Hall.* 

The  insolence  and  cruelty  of  Jeffreys  excite,  even  at  the 
distance  of  so  many  years,  an  indignation  which  makes  it  diffi- 
cult to  be  just  to  him.  Yet  a  perfectly  dispassionate  enquirer 
may  perhaps  think  it  by  no  means  clear  that  the  award  of  execu- 
tion was  illegal.  There  was  no  precedent ;  and  the  words  of 
the  Act  of  Edward  the  Sixth  may,  without  any  straining,  be 
construed  as  the  Court  construed  them.  Indeed,  had  the  penalty 
been  ouly  fine  and  imprisonment,  nobody  would  have  seen  any- 
thing reprehensible  in  the  proceeding.  But  to  send  a  man  to 
the  gallows  as  a  traitor,  without  confronting  him  with  his 
accusers,  without  hearing  his  defence,  solely  because  a  timidity 
which  is  perfectly  compatible  with  innocence  has  impelled  him 
to  hide  himself,  is  surely  a  violation,  if  not  of  any  written  law, 
yet  of  those  great  principles  to  which  all  laws  ought  to 
conform.  The  case  was  brought  before  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. The  orphan  daughter  of  Armstrong  came  to  the  bar  to 
demand  vengeance  ;  and  a  warm  debate  followed.  Sawyer 
was  fiercely  attacked,  and  strenuously  defended.  The  Tories 
declared  that  he  appeared  to  them  to  have  done  only  what,  as 
counsel  for  the  Crown,  he  was  bound  to  do,  and  to  have  dis- 
charged his  duty  to  God,  to  the  King,  and  to  the  prisoner.  If 
the  award  was  legal,  nobody  was  to  blame ;  and  if  the  award 
was  illegal,  the  blame  lay,  not  with  the  Attorney  General,  but 
with  the  Judges.  There  would  be  an  end  of  all  liberty  of  speech 
at  the  bar,  if  an  advocate  was  to  be  punished  for  making  a  strictly 
regular  application  to  a  Court,  and  for  arguing  ihat  certain  words 

*  See  the  account  of  the  proceedings  in  the  collection  of  State  Trials.  It  has 
been  asserted  that  I  have  committed  an  error  here,  and  that  Armstrong's  head 
was  placed  on  Temple  Bar.  The  truth  is  that  one  of  his  quarters  was  placed  on 
Temple  Bar.  His  head  was  on  Westminster  Hall.  See  LuttreLTs  Diary,  Juno 
1684. 


472  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

in  a  statute  were  to  be  understood  in  a  certain  sense.  The  Whigs 
called  Sawyer  murderer,  bloodhound,  hangman.  If  the  liberty 
of  speech  claimed  by  advocates  meant  the  liberty  of  haranguing 
men  to  death,  it  was  high  time  that  the  nation  should  rise  up  and 
exterminate  the  whole  race  of  lawyers.  "  Things  will  never  be 
well  done,"  said  one  orator,  "  till  some  of  that  profession  be 
made  examples."  ''  No  crime  to  demand  execution  !  "  exclaimed 
John  Hampden.  "  We  shall  be  told  next  that  it  was  no  crime 
in  the  Jews  to  cry  out,  '  Crucify  him.' "  A  wise  and  just  man 
would  probably  have  been  of  opinion  that  this  was  not  a  case 
for  severity.  Sawyer's  conduct  might  have  been,  to  a  certain 
extent,  culpable  :  but,  if  an  Act  of  Indemnity  was  to  be  passed 
at  all,  it  was  to  be  passed  for  the  benefit  of  persons  whose  con- 
duct had  been  culpable.  The  question  was  not  whether  he  was 
guiltless,  but  whether  his  guilt  was  of  so  peculiarly  black  a  dye 
that  he  ought,  notwithstanding  all  his  sacrifices  and  services,  to 
be  excluded  by  name  from  the  mercy  which  was  to  be  granted 
to  many  thousands  of  offenders.  This  question  calm  and  impar- 
tial judges  would  probably  have  decided  in  his  favour.  It  was, 
however,  resolved  that  he  should  be  excepted  from  the  Indemni- 
ty and  expelled  from  the  House.* 

On  the  morrow  the  Bill  of  Indemnity,  now  transformed  into 
a  Bill  of  Pains  and  Penalties,  was  again  discussed.  The  Whigs 
consented  to  refer  it  to  a  Committee  of  the  whole  House,  but 
proposed  to  instruct  the  Committee  to  begin  its  labours  by  mak- 
ing out  a  list  of  the  offenders  who  were  to  be  proscribed.  The 
Tories  moved  the  previous  question.  The  House  divided  :  and 
the  Whigs  carried  their  point  by  a  hundred  and  ninety  votes  to 
a  hundred  and  seventy-three.t 

The  King  watched  these  events  with  painful  anxiety.     He 

*  Commons'  Journals,  Jan.  20,  1089-90  ;  Grey's  Debates,  Jan.  18,  and  20. 

t  Commons'  Journals.  Jan.  21,  1689-90.  On  the  same  day  William  wrote  thus 
from  Kensington  to  Portland  :  "  C'est  aujourd'hui  le  grand  jour  i  1'eguard  du 
Bill  of  Jndemnite.  Selon  tout  ce  que  je  puis  aprendre,  il  y  aura  beaucoup  de 
chaleur,  et  rien  determiner ;  et  de  la  maniere  que  la  chose  cst  entourre',  il  n'y 
a  point  d'aparence  que  cette  affaire  viene  a  aucune  conclusion.  Et  ainsi  il  se 
pouroit  que  la  cession  fust  fort  courte  ;  n'ayant  plus  d'argent  a  esperer  ;  et  les 
esprits  s'aigrissent  I'un  centre  1'autre  de  plus  en  plus."  Three  davs  later  Van 
Citters  informed  the  States  General  that  the  excitement  about  the  Bill  of  Indem- 
nity was  extreme. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  473 

was  weary  of  his  crown.  He  had  tried  to  do  justice  to  both  the 
contending  parties;  but  justice  would  satisfy  neither.  The  Tories 
hated  him  for  protecting  the  Dissenters.  The  Whigs  hated  him 
for  protecting  the  Tories.  The  amnesty  seemed  to  be  more 
remote  than  when,  ten  months  before,  he  first  recommended  it 
from  the  throne'.  The  last  compaign  in  Ireland  had  been  dis- 
astrous. It  might  well  be  that  the  next  campaign  would  be  more 
disastrous  still.  The  malpractices,  which  had  done  more  than 
the  exhalations  of  the  marshes  of  Dun:lalk  to  destroy  the  efficiency 
of  the  English  troops  were  likely  to  be  as  monstrous  as  ever. 
Every  part  of  the  administration  was  thoroughly  disorganised ; 
and  the  people  were  surprised  and  angry  because  a  foreigner, 
newly  come  among  them,  imperfectly  acquainted  with  them,  and 
constantly  thwarted  by  them,  had  not,  in  a  year,  put  the  whole 
machine  of  government  to  rights.  Most  of  his  ministers,  instead 
of  assisting  him,  were  trying  to  get  up  addresses  and  impeach- 
ments against  each  other.  Yet  if  he  employed  his  own  country- 
men, on  whose  fidelity  and  attachment  he  could  rely,  a  general 
cry  of  rage  was  set  up  by  all  the  English  factions.  The  knavery 
of  the  English  Commissariat  had  destroyed  an  army  ;  yet  a 
rumour  that  he  intended  to  employ  an  able,  experienced,  and 
trusty  Commissary  from  Holland  had  excited  general  discontent. 
The  King  felt  that  he  could  not,  while  thus  situated,  render  any 
service  to  that  great  cause  to  which  his  whole  soul  was  devoted. 

o 

Already  the  glory  which  he  had  won  by  conducting  to  a  success- 
ful issue  the  most  important  enterprise  of  that  age  was  becoming 
dim.  Even  his  friends  had  begun  to  doubt  whether  he  really 
possessed  all  that  sagacity  and  energy  which  had  a  few  months 
before  extorted  the  unwilling  admiration  of  his  enemies.  But 
he  would  endure  his  splendid  slavery  no  longer.  He  would  re- 
turn to  his  native  country.  He  would  content  himself  with  being 
the  first  citizen  of  a  commonwealth  to  which  the  name  of  Orange 
was  dear.  As  such,  he  might  still  be  foremost  among  those  who 
were  banded  together  in  defence  of  the  liberties  of  Europe.  As 
for  the  turbulent  and  ungrateful  islanders,  who  detested  him 
because  he  would  not  let  them  tear  each  other  in  pieces,  Mary 
must  trv  what  she  could  do  with  them.  She  was  born  on  their 


474  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

soil.  She  spoke  their  language.  She  did  not  dislike  some  parts 
of  their  Liturgy,  which  they  fancied  to  be  essential,  and  which 
to  him  seemed  at  best  harmless.  It'  she  had  little  knowledge  of 

O 

politics  and  war,  she  had  what  might  be  more  useful,  feminine 
grace  ai.d  tact,  a  sweet  temper,  a  smile  and  a  kind  word  for 
everybody.  She  might  be  able  to  compose  the  disputes  which 
distracted  the  State  and  the  Church.  Holland,  under  his  govern- 
ment, and  England  under  hers,  might  act  cordially  together 
against  the  common  enemy. 

He  secretly  ordered  preparations  to  be  made  for  his  voyage. 
Having  done  this,  he  called  together  a  few  of  his  chief  coun- 
sellors, ai;d  told  them  his  purpose.  A  squadron,  he  said,  was 
ready  to  convey  him  to  his  country.  He  had  done  with  them. 
He  hoped  that  the  Queen  would  be  more  successful.  The  minis- 
ters were  thunderstruck.  For  once  all  quarrels  were  suspended. 
The  Tory  Caermarthen  on  one  side,  the  Whig  Shrewsbury  on 
the  other,  expostulated  and  implored  with  a  pathetic  vehemence 
rare  in  the  conferences  of  statesmen.  Many  tears  were  shed. 
At  length  the  King  was  induced  to  give  up,  at  least  for  the 
present,  his  design  of  abdicating  the  government.  But  he  an- 
nounced another  design  which  he  was  fully  determined  not  to  give 
up.  Since  he  was  still  to  remain  at  the  head  of  the  English 
administration,  he  would  go  himself  to  Ireland.  He  would  try 
whether  the  whole  royal  authority,  strenuously  exerted  on  the 
spot  where  the  fate  of  the  empire  was  to  be  decided,  would 
suffice  to  prevent  peculation  and  to  maintain  discipline.* 

That  he  had  seriously  meditated  a  retreat  to  Holland  long 
continued  to  be  a  secret,  not  only  to  the  multitude,  but  even  to 
the  Queen. f  That  he  had  resolved  to  take  the  command  of  his 
army  in  Ireland  was  soon  rumoured  all  over  London.  It  was 
known  that  his  camp  furniture  was  making,  and  that  Sir  Chris- 
topher Wren  was  busied  in  constructing  a  house  of  wood  which 
was  to  travel  about,  packed  in  two  waggons,  and  to  be  set  up 
wherever  His  Majesty  might  fix  his  quarters. $  The  Whigs 

*  Burnet,  ii.  39  ;  MS.  Memoir  written  by  the  first  Lord  Lonsdale  among  the 
Mackintosh  Papers. 

t  Burnet,  ii.  40.  t  LuttrelVs  Diary,  January  and  February. 


•WILLIAM    AND    MART.  475 

raised  a  violent  outcry  against  the  whole  scheme.  Not  knowing, 
or  affecting  not  to  know,  that  it  had  been  formed  by  William, 
and  by  William  alone,  and  that  none  of  his  ministers  had  dared 
to  advise  him  to  encounter  the  Irish  swords  and  the  Irish  atmos- 
phere, the  whole  party  confidently  affirmed  that  he  had  been 
misled  by  some  traitor  in  the  cabinet,  by  some  Tory  who  hated 
the  Revolution  and  all  that  had  sprung  from  the  Revolution. 
Would  any  true  friend  have  advised  His  Majesty,  infirm  in  health 
as  he  was,  to  expose  himself,  not  only  to  the  dangers  of  war,  but 
to  the  malignity  of  a  climate  which  had  recently  been  fatal  to 
thousands  of  men  much  stronger  than  himself?  In  private  the 
King  sneered  bitterly  at  this  anxiety  for  his  safety.  It  was 
merely,  in  his  judgment,  the  anxiety  which  a  hard  master  feels 
lest  his  slaves  should  become  unfit  for  their  drudgery.  The 
Whigs,  he  wrote  to  Portland,  were  afraid  to  lose  their  tool  be- 
fore they  had  done  their  work.  "  As  to  their  friendship,"  he 
added,  "  you  know  what  it  is  worth."  His  resolution,  he  told 
his  friend,  was  unalterably  fixed.  Everything  was  at  stake ; 
and  go  he  must  even  though  the  Parliament  should  present  an 
address  imploring  him  to  stay.* 

He  soon  learned  that  such  an  address  would  be  immediately 
moved  in  both  Houses  and  supported  by  the  whole  strength  of 
the  Whig  party.  This  intelligence  satisfied  him  that  it  was  time 
to  take  a  decisive  step.  lie  would  not  discard  the  Whigs  :  but 
he  would  give  them  a  lesson  of  which  they  stood  much  in  need. 
He  would  break  the  chain  in  which  they  imagined  that  they  had 
him  fast.  He  would  not  let  them  have  the  exclusive  possession 
of  power.  He  would  not  let  them  persecute  the  vanquished 

*  William  to  Portland,  Jan.  10-20,  1690.  "  Lea  \Viges  ont  peur  de  me  perdre 
trop  tost,  avant  qu'ils  n'ayent  fait  avec  moy  ce  qu'ils  veuleut :  car,  pour  leur 
amitie,  vous  savez  ce  qu'il  y  a  a  compter  la'dessus  en  ce  pays  icy." 

J:in.  14-21.  "  Me  voila  le  plus  embarasscS  du  monde,  lie  sachant  quel  parti 
prendre,  estant  toujonrs  persuade  que,  sans  que  j'aille  en  Irlande,  1'on  n'y  faira 
rieii  qui  vaille.  Pour  avoir  duconseil  en  cette  affaire,  je  n'en  ay  point  a  attendre, 
personne  n'ausant  dire  ses  sentimens.  Et  1'on  commence  deja  a  dire  ouverte- 
ment  que  ce  sont  des  traitres  qui  in'ont  conseille  de  prendre  cette  resolution." 

Jan.  21-31.  "  Je  n'ay  encore  rien  dit," — he  means  to  the  Parliament, — "de 
mon  voyage  pour  1'Irlande.  Et  jo  lie  suis  point  encore  determine1  si  j'en  par- 
lerez  :  maisje  crains  que  noi'obstaiit  j'aurez  une  adresse  pour  n'y  point  aller ; 
ce  qui  m'embarassera  beaucoup.  puis  que  c'cst  une  nece&dte  ab.solue  que  j'y 
aillo." 


476  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

party.  In  their  despite,  he  would  grant  an  amnesty  to  his 
people.  In  their  despite,  he  would  take  the  command  of  his 
army  in  Ireland.  He  arranged  his  plan  with  characteristic 
prudence,  firmness,  and  secrecy.  A  single  Englishman  it  was 
necessary  to  trust :  for  William  was  not  sufficiently  master  of 
our  language  to  address  the  Houses  from  the  throne  in  his  own 
words  ;  and  on  very  important  occasions,  his  practice  was  to 
write  his  speech  in  French,  and  to  employ  a  translator.  It  is 
certain  that  to  one  person,  and  to  one  only,  the  King  confided 
the  momentous  resolution  which  he  had  taken  ;  and  it  can  hardly 
be  doubted  that  this  person  was  Caermarthen. 

On  the  twenty-seventh  of  January,  Black  Rod  knocked  at 
the  door  of  the  Commons.  The  Speaker  and  the  members  re- 
paired to  the  House  of  Lords.  The  King  was  on  the  throne. 
He  gave  his  assent  to  the  Supply  Bill,  thanked  the  Houses  for 
it,  announced  his  intention  of  going  to  Ireland,  and  prorogued  the 
Parliament.  None  could  doubt  that  a  dissolution  would  speedily 
follow.  As  the  concluding  words,  "  I  have  thought  it  conve- 

O  '  O 

nient  now  to  put  an  end  to  this  session,"  were  uttered,  the  Tories, 
both  above  and  below  the  bar,  broke  forth  into  a  shout  of  joy. 
The  King  meanwhile  surveyed  his  audience  from  the  throne 
with  that  bright  eagle  eye  which  nothing  escaped.  He  might 
be  pardoned  if  he  felt  some  little  vindictive  pleasure  in  annoy- 
ing those  who  had  cruelly  annoyed  him.  "  I  saw,"  he  wrote  to 
Portland  the  next  day,  "  faces  an  ell  long.  I  saw  some  of 
those  men  change  colour  twenty  times  while  I  was  speaking."  * 
A  few  hours  after  the  prorogation,  a  hundred  and  fifty  Tory 
members  of  Parliament  had  a  parting  dinner  together  at  the 
Apollo  Tavern  in  Fleet  Street,  before  they  set  out  for  their 
counties.  They  were  in  better  temper  with  William  than  they 

*  William  to  Portland,  -p"b  2*'  1690 ;  Van  Citters  to  the  States  General,  same 

date  ;  Evelyn's  Diary ;  Lords'  Journals,  Jan.  27.  I  will  quote  William's  own 
words.  "  Vous  vairez  mou  harangue  imprimt$e  :  ainsi  je  ne  vous  en  direz  rien. 
Et  pour  les  raisons  qui  m'y  out  oblige^  je  les  reserverez  b.  vous  les  dire  jusques  a 
vostre  retour.  "II  semble  que  les  Toris  en  Bont  bien  aise,  mais  point  les  Wiggs. 
Us  cstoiant  tous  fort  surpris  quand  je  leur  parlois.  n'ayant  communique  mon 
dessin  qu'a  une  seule  personne.  Je  vis  des  visasjes  long  comme  un  aune,  chang6 
de  couleur  vingt  fois  pendant  que  je  parlois.  Tous  ces  particularity  jusques  & 
vostre  heureux  retour." 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  477 

had  been  since  his  father  in  law  had  been  turned  out  of  White- 
hall. They  had  scarcely  recovered  from  the  joyful  surprise  with 
which  they  had  heard  it  announced  from  the  throne  that  the 
session  was  at  an  end.  The  recollection  of  their  danger  and  the 
sense  of  their  deliverance  were  still  fresh.  They  talked  of  re- 
pairing to  Court  in  a  body  to  testify  their  gratitude  ;  but  they 
were  induced  to  forego  their  intention  ;  and  not  without  cause  ; 
for  a  great  crowd  of  squires,  after  a  revel,  at  which  doubtless 
neither  October  nor  claret  had  been  spared,  might  have  caused 
some  inconvenience  in  the  presence  chamber.  Sir  John  Low- 
ther,  who  in  wealth  and  influence  was  inferior  to  no  country  gen- 
tleman of  that  age,  was  deputed  to  carry  the  thanks  of  the  as- 
sembly to  the  palace.  He  spoke,  he  told  the  King,  the  sense 
of  a  great  body  of  honest  gentlemen.  They  begged  His  Majesty 
to  be  assured  that  they  would  in  their  counties  do  their  best  to 
serve  him ;  and  they  cordially  wished  him  a  safe  voyage  to  Ire- 
land, a  complete  victory,  a  speedy  retnrn,  and  a  long  and  happy 
reign.  During  the  following  week,  many,  who  had  never  shown, 
their  faces  in  the  circle  at  Saint  James's  since  the  Revolution, 
went  to  kiss  the  King's  hand.  So  "warmly  indeed  did  those  who 
had  hitherto  been  regarded  as  half  Jacobites  express  their  ap- 
probation of  the  policy  of  the  government  that  the  thoroughgo- 
ing Jacobites  were  much  disgusted,  and  complained  bitterly  of 
the  strange  blindness  which  seemed  to  have  come  on  the  sons  of 
the  Church  of  England.* 

All  the  acts  of  William,  at  this  time,  indicated  his  determina- 
tion to  restrain,  steadily  though  gently,  the  violence  of  the 
Whigs,  and  to  conciliate,  if  possible,  the  good  will  of  the  Tories. 
Several  persons  whom  the  Commons  had  thrown  into  prison 
for  treason  were  set  at  liberty  on  bail.f  The  prelates  who  held 
that  their  allegiance  was  still  due  to  James  were  treated  with  a 
tenderness  rare  in  the  history  of  revolutions.  Within  a  week 
after  *he  prorogation,  the  first  of  February  came,  the  day  on 
which  those  ecclesiastics  who  refused  to  take  the  oaths  were  to 

*  Evelyn's  Dinry ;  Clarendon's  Diary,  Feb.  9, 1630  ;  Van  Citters  to  the  States 

General.  .™^'t :  Lousdale  MS.  quoted  by  Dalrymple. 
t  .Narcissus  Lu: troll's  Diary. 


478  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

be  finally  deprived.  Several  of  the  suspended  clergy,  after  hold- 
ing out  till  the  last  moment,  swore  just  in  time  to  save  themselves 
from  beggary.  But  the  Primate  and  five  of  his  suffragans  were 
still  inflexible.  They  consequently  forfeited  their  bishoprics  : 
but  Sancroft  was  informed  that  the  King  had  not  yet  relinquished 
the  hope  of  being  able  to  make  some  arrangement  which  might 
avert  the  necessity  of  appointing  successors,  and  that  the  nonjur- 
ing  prelates  might  continue  for  the  present  to  reside  in  their 
palaces.  Their  receivers  were  appointed  receivers  for  the  Crown, 
and  continued  to  collect  the  revenues  of  t\te  vacant  sees.*  Sim- 
ilar indulgence  was  shown  to  some  divines  of  lower  rank.  Sher- 
lock, in  particular,  continued,  after  his  deprivation,  to  live 
unmolested  in  his  official  mansion  close  to  the  Temple  Church. 

And  now  appeared  a  proclamation  dissolving  the  Parliament. 
The  writs  for  a  general  election  went  out ;  and  soon  every  part 
of  the  kingdom  was  in  a  ferment.  Van  Citters,  who  had  resided 
in  England  during  many  eventful  years,  declared  that  he  had 
never  seen  London  more  violently  agitated. f  The  excitement 
was  kept  up  by  compositions  of  all  sorts,  from  sermons  with 
sixteen  heads  down  to  jingling  street  ballads.  Lists  of  divisions 
were,  for  the  first  time  in  our  history,  printed  and  dispersed  for 
the  information  of  constituent  bodies.  Two  of  these  lists  may 
still  be  seen  in  old  libraries.  One  of  the  two.  circulated  by 
the  Whigs,  contained  the  names  of  those  Tories  who  had  voted 
against  declaring  the  throne  vacant.  The  other,  circulated  by 
the  Tories,  contained  the  names  of  those  Whigs  who  had  sup- 
ported the  Sacheverell  clause. 

It  soon  became  clear  that  public  feeling  had  undergone  a 
great  change  during  the  year  which  had  elapsed  since  the  Con- 
vention had  met :  and  it  is  impossible  to  deny  that  this  change 
was,  at  least  in  part,  the  natural  consequence  and  the  just  pun- 
ishment of  the  intemperate  and  vindictive  conduct  of  the  Whi«js. 
Of  the  City  of  London  they  thought  themselves  sure.  The 
livery  had  in  the  preceding  year  returned  four  zealous  Whigs 
without  a  contest.  Ihit  all  the  fc.ur  had  voted  lor  the  Sache- 
verell clause ;  and  by  that  clause  many  of  the  merchant  princes 

*  Clarendon's  Diary,  Feb.  11,  1G90. 

t  Van  Cittern  to  the  States  General,  February  14-24, 1690  ;  Evelyn's  Diary. 


•WILLIAM   AND    MART.  479 

of  Lombard  Street  and  Cornhill,  men  powerful  in  the  twelve 
great  companies,  men  whom  the  goldsmiths  followed  humbly, 
hut  in  hand,  up  and  do*vn  the  arcades  of  the  Royal  Exchange, 
would  have  been  turned  with  all  indignity  out  of  the  Court  of 
Aldermen  and  out  of  the  Common  Council.  The  stru^jrle  was 

OO 

for  life  or  death.  No  exertions,  no  artifices,  were  spared. 
William  wrote  to  Portland  that  the  Whigs  of  the  City,  in  their 
despair,  stuck  at  nothing,  and  that,  as  they  went  on,  they  would 
soon  stand  as  much  in  need  of  an  Act  of  Indemnity  as  the  Tories. 
Four  Tories  however  were  returned,  and  that  by  so  decisive  a 
majority  that  the  Tory  who  stood  lowest  polled  four  hundred 
votes  more  than  the  Whig  who  stood  highest.*  The  Sheriffs, 
desiring  to  defer  as  long  as  possible  the  triumph  of  their  enemies, 
granted  a  scrutiny.  But,  though  the  majority  was  diminished, 
the  result  was  not  affected,  f  At  Westminster,  two  opponents 
of  the  Sacheverell  clause  were  elected  without  a  contest. t  But 
nothing  indicated  more  strongly  the  disgust  excited  by  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  late  House  of  Commons  than  what  passed  in  the 
University  of  Cambridge.  Newton  retired  to  his  quiet  observ- 
atory over  the  gate  of  Trinity  College.  Two  Tories  were  re- 
turned by  an  overwhelming  majority.  At  the  head  of  the  poll 
was  Sawyer,  who  had,  but  a  few  days  before,  been  excepted 
from  the  Indemnity  Bill  and  expelled  from  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. The  records  of  the  University  contain  curious  proofs 
that  the  unwise  severity  with  which  he  had  been  treated  had 
raised  an  enthusiastic  feeling  in  his  favour.  Newton  voted  for 
Sawyer  ;  and  this  remarkable  fact  justifies  us  in  believing  that 
the  great  philosopher,  in  whose  genius  and  virtue  the  Whig 
party  justly  glories,  had  seen  the  headstrong  and  revengeful 
conduct  of  that  party  with  concern  and  disapprobation^ 

*  'William  to  Portland,  JebV ^  16tfO ;  Van  Citters  to  the  States  General,  March 

March  10, 
4-14  ;  Narcissus  Luttrell's  Diary. 

t  Van  Citters,  March  11-21, 16.10  ;  Narcissus  Luttrell's  Diary. 

t  Van  Citt  rs  to  the  States  General,  March  11-21,  1690. 

§  The  votes  were  for  Sawyer  1G5,  for  Finch  141,  for  Bennet,  -whom  I  supr-ose 
to  have  been  a  Whig,  87.  At  the  University  every  voter  delivers  his  vote  in 
•writing.  One  of  the  votes  given  on  this  occasion  in  in  the  following  words, 
"  Henricus  Jenkefc,  ex  amore  josti'dae,  eligit  viruiu  consul  lissimuiu  Robcrtum 
Sawyer." 


480  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

It  was  soon  plain  that  the  Tories  would  have  a  majority  in 
the  new  House  of  Commons.*  All  the  leading  Whigs  however 
obtained  seats,  with  one  exception.  John  Hampden  was  ex- 
cluded, and  was  regretted  only  by  the  most  intolerant  and  un- 
reasonable members  of  his  party. f 

The  King  meanwhile  was  making,  in  almost  every  depart- 
ment of  the  executive  government,  a  change  corresponding  to 
the  change  which  the  general  election  was  making  in  the  com- 
position of  the  legislature.  Still,  however,  he  did  not  think  of 
forming  what  is  now  called  a  ministry.  He  still  reserved  to 
himself  more  especially  the  direction  of  foreign  affairs,  and  he 
superintended  with  minute  attention  all  the  preparations  for  the 
approaching  campaign  in  Ireland.  In  his  confidential  letters  he 
complained  that  he  had  to  perform,  with  little  or  no  assistance, 
the  task  of  organising  the  disorganised  military  establishments 
of  the  kingdom.  The  work,  he  said,  was  heavy  ;  but  it  must 
be  done;  for  everything  depended  on  it.J  In  general,  the  gov- 
ernment was  still  a  government  by  independent  departments ; 
and  in  almost  every  department  Whigs  and  Tories  were  still 
mingled,  though  not  exactly  in  the  old  proportions.  The  Whig 
element  had  decidedly  predominated  in  1 689.  The  Tory  ele- 
ment predominated  though  not  very  decidedly,  in  1690. 

*  Van  Citters  to  the  States  General,  March  18-28, 1690. 

t  It  is  amusing  to  see  how  absurdly  foreign  pamphleteers,  ignorant  of  the  real 
state  of  things  in  England,  exaggerated  the  importance  of  John  Hampden,  whose 
name  they  could  not  spell.  In  a  French  Dialogue  between  William  and  the 
Ghost  of  Monmouth,  William  says,  "  Entre  ces  memhres  de  la  Chambre  Basse 
eioit  un  certain  homme  hardy,  opiniatre,  et  zele  a  1'exces  pour  sa  creance;  on 

1'appelle  Embden,  egalement  dangereux  par  son  esprit  et  par  son  credit 

Je  ne  trouvay  point  de  chemiii  plus  court  pour  me  delivrer  de  cette  traverse  que 
de  casser  le  parlement,  en  convoquer  un  autre,  et  empescher  que  cet  homme,  qtii 
me  faisoit  tant  d'ombrages,  ne  fust  nomine  pour  un  des  deputez  au  nouvel  parle- 
ment." "  Ainsi,"  says  the  Ghost,  "  cette  cassation  de  parlement  qui  a  fait  tant 
de  bruit,  et  a  produit  tant  de  raisonnemens  et  de  speculations,  n'estoit  que  pour 
exclure  Embden.  Mais  s'il  estoit  si  adroit  et  ci  zele,  comment  as-tu  pu  trouver  le 
moyen  de  le  faire  exelure  du  nombre  des  deputez  ?  "  To  this  sensible  question 
the  King  replies,  not  very  explicitly,  "  II  m'a  fallu  faire  d'6tranges  manoeuvres 
pour  en  venir  a  bout." — L'Ombre  de  Monmouth,  1690. 

t  "  A  present  tout  dtfpendra  d'un  bon  succ^s  eu  Irlande  ;  et  a  quoy  il  faut  que 

je  m'aplique  entierement  pour  regler  le  mieux  que  je  puis  toutte  chose 

Je  vous  asseure  que  je  n'ay  pas  peu  sur  les  bras,  estant  aussi  mal  assist^  que  je 

Buis."-William  to  Portland,  16SO. 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  481 

Halifax  had  laid  down  the  Privy  Seal.  It  was  offered  to 
f  liesterfield,  a  Tory  who  had  voted  iu  the  Convention  for  a 
Kegency.  But  Chesterfield  refused  to  quit  his  country  house 
and  gardens  in  Derbyshire  for  the  Court  and  the  Council  Cham- 
ber ;  and  the  Privy  Seal  was  put  into  Commission.*  Caermar- 
then  was  now  the  chief  adviser  of  the  crown  on  all  matters  re- 
lating to  the  internal  administration  and  to  the  management  of 
the  two  Houses  of  Parliament.  The  white  staff,  and  the  im- 
mense power  which  accompanied  the  white  staff,  William  was 
still  determined  never  to  entrust  to  any  subject.  Caerrnarthen 
therefore  continued  to  be  Lord  President ;  but  he  took  posses- 
sion of  a  suite  of  apartments  in  Saint  James's  Palace  which  was 
considered  as  peculiarly  belonging  to  the  Prime  Minister.f  He 
had,  during  the  preceding  year,  pleaded  ill  health  as  an  excuse 
for  seldom  appearing  at  the  Council  Board  ;  and  the  plea  was 
uot  without  foundation  :  his  digestive  organs  had  some  morbid 
peculiarities  which  puzzled  the  whole  College  of  Physicians  : 
his  complexion  was  livid :  his  frame  was  meagre ;  and  his  face, 
handsome  and  intellectual  as  it  was,  had  a  haggard  look  which 
indicated  the  restlessness  of  pain  as  well  as  the  restless- 
ness of  ambition.  J  As  soon,  however,  as  he  was  once  more 
minister,  he  applied  himself  strenuously  to  business,  and  toiled 
every  day,  and  all  day  long,  with  an  energy  whidi  amazed 
everybody  who  saw  his  ghastly  countenance  and  tottering  gait. 

Though  he  could  not  obtain  for  himself  the   office  of   Lord 

*  Van  Citters,  Feb.  14-24,  1689-90  ;  Memoir  of  the  Earl  of  Chesterfield,  by  him- 
self ;  Halifax  to  Chesterfield,  Feb.  6;  Chesterfield  to  Halifax,  Feb.  8.  The  editor 
of  the  letters  of  the  second  Earl  of  Chesterfield,  not  allowing  for  the  change  of 
style,  has  misplaced  this  correspondence  by  a  year. 

t  Van  Citters  to  the  States  General,  Feb.  11-21,  1C90. 

t  .A  strange  peculiarity  of  his  constitution  is  mentioned  in  an  account  of  him 
which  was  published  a  few  months  after  his  death.  See  the  volume  entitled 
"  Lives  and  Characters  of  the  most  Illustrious  Persons,  British  and  Foreign,  who 
died  in  the  year  1712."  So  early  as  the  days  of  Charles  the  Second,  the  leanness 
and  ghastliness  of  Caermarthen  were  among  the  favourite  topics  of  Whig  satir- 
ists. In  a  ballad  entitled  the  Chequer  Inn  are  these  lines  : 

"  He  is  as  stiff  as  any  stake. 
And  leaner,  Dick,  than  any  rake  : 

Envy  is  not  so  pale  ; 
And  though,  by  selling  of  us  all, 
lie  ho*  wrought  himself  in  to  Whitehall, 

He  looks  like  bird  of  gaol." 

VOL.  III.— 31 


482  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Treasurer,  his  influence  at  the  Treasury  was  great.  Monmouth, 
the  First  Commissioner,  and  Delamere,  the  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer,  two  of  the  most  violent  Whigs  in  England,  quitted 
their  seats.  On  this,  as  on  many  other  occasions,  it  appeared 
that  they  had  nothing  but  their  Whiggism  in  common.  The 
volatile  Monmouth,  sensible  that  he  had  none  of  the  qualities 
of  a  financier,  seems  to  have  taken  -no  personal  offence  at  being 
removed  from  a  place  which  he  never  ought  to  have  occupied. 
He  thankfully  accepted  a  pension,  which  his  profuse  habits 
made  necessary  to  him,  and  still  continued  to  attend  Councils, 
to  frequent  the  Court,  and  to  discharge  the  duties  of  a  Lord  of 
the  Bedchamber.*  He  also  tried  to  make  himself  useful  in 
military  business,  which  he  understood,  if  not  well,  yet  better  than 
most  of  his  brother  nobles  :  and  he  professed,  during  a  few 
months,  a  great  regard  for  Caermarthen.  Delamere  was  in  a 
very  different  mood.  It  was  in  vain  that  his  services  were 
overpaid  with  honours  and  riches.  He  was  created  Earl  of 
Warrington.  He  obtained  a  grant  of  all  the  lands  that  could 
be  discovered  belonging  to  Jesuits  in  five  or  six  counties.  A 
demand  made  by  him  on  account  of  expenses  incurred  at  the 
time  of  the  Revolution  was  allowed ;  and  he  carried  with  him 
into  retirement  as  the  reward  of  his  patriotic  exertions  a  large 
sum  which  the  State  could  ill  spare.  But  his  anger  was  not  to 
be  so  appeased  ;  and  to  the  end  of  his  life  he  continued  to  com- 
plain bitterly  of  the  ingratitude  with  which  he  and  his  party 
had  been  treated. f 

*  Monmoutb's  pension  and  the  good  understanding  between  bim  and  the 
Court  are  mentioned  in  a  letter  from  a  Jacobite  agent  in  England,  wbicb  is  iu 
tbe  Archives  of  the  French  War  Office.  The  date  is  April  8-18,  1690. 

t  The  grants  of  land  obtained  by  Delamere  are  mentioned  by  Narcissus  Lut- 
trell.  It  appears  from  tbe  Treasury  Letter  Book  of  1690  that  Delamere  continued 
to  dun  the  government  for  money  after  bis  retirement.  As  to  his  general  char- 
acter it  would  not  be  safe  to  trust  the  representations  of  his  enemies.  But  his 
own  writings,  and  tbe  admissions  of  tbe  divine  who  preached  his  funeral  sermon 
show  that  bis  temper  was  not  the  most  gentle.  Clarendon  remarks  (Dec.  17,  1G88,) 
that  a  little  thing  sufficed  to  put  Lord  Delamere  into  a  passion.  In  tbe  poem  en- 
titled tbe  King  of  Hearts,  Delamere  is  described  as— 

"  A  restless  malccontent  even  when  preferred." 
His  countenance  furnished  a  subject  for  satire  : 

"  ilia  bodiug  looks  a  mind  ilistrnctc;!  show  ; 
And  envy  sits  engraved  upon  his  brow." 


WILLIA5I   AND   MART.  483 

Sir  John  Lowther  became  first  Lord  of  the  Treasury,  arid 
was  the  person  on  whom  Caermarthen  chiefly  relied  for  the 
conduct  of  the  ostensible  business  of  the  House  of  Commons. 
Lowther  was  a  man  of  ancient  descent,  ample  estate,  and  great 
parliamentary  interest.  Though  not  an  old  man,  he  was  an 
old  senator :  for  he  had,  before  he  was  of  age,  succeeded  his 
father  as  knight  of  the  shire  for  Westmoreland.  In  truth 
the  representation  of  Westmoreland  was  almost  as  much  one 
of  the  hereditaments  of  the  Lowther  family  as  Lowther 
Hall.  Sir  John's  abilities  were  respectable :  his  manners, 
though  sarcastically  noticed  in  contemporary  lampoons  as  too 
formal,  were  eminently  courteous  :  his  personal  courage  he  was 
but  too  ready  to  prove :  his  morals  were  irreproachable  :  his 
time  was  divided  between  respectable  labours  and  respectable 
pleasures :  his  chief  business  was  to  attend  the  House  of  Commons 
and  to  preside  on  the  Bench  of  Justice  :  his  favourite  amuse- 
ments were  reading  and  gardening.  In  opinions  he  was  a  very 
moderate  Tory.  He  was  attached  to  hereditary  monarchy  and 
to  the  Established  Church :  but  he  had  concurred  in  the  Rev- 
olution :  he  had  no  misgivings  touching  the  title  of  William  and 
Mary  :  he  had  sworn  allegiance  to  them  without  any  mental 
reservation  ;  and  he  appears  to  have  strictly  kept  his  oath. 
Between  him  and  Caermarthen  there  was  a  close  connection. 
They  had  acted  together  cordially  in  the  Northern  insurrection  ; 
and  they  agreed  in  their  political  views,  as  nearly  as  a  very 
cunning  statesman  and  a  very  honest  country  gentleman  could 
be  expected  to  agree.*  By  Caermartheu's  influence  Lowther 
xvas  now  raised  to  one  of  the  most  important  places  in  the  king- 
dom. Unfortunately  it  was  a  place  requiring  qualities  very 
different  from  those  which  suffice  to  make  a  valuable  county 
member  and  chairman  of  quarter  sessions.  The  tongue  of  the 

*  My  notion  of  Lowther's  character  has  been  chiefly  formed  from  two  papers 
written  by  himself,  one  of  which  has  been  printed,  though  I  believe  not  pub- 
lished. A  copy  of  the  other  is  among  the  Mackintosh  MSS.  Something  1  have 
taken  from  contemporary  satires.  That  Lowther  was  too  ready  to  expose  his  life 
in  private  encounters  is  sufficiently  proved  by  the  fact  that,  when  he  was  First 
Lord  of  the  Treasury,  he  accepted  a  challenge  from  a  custom  house  officer  whom 
he  had  dismissed.  There  was  a  duel ;  and  Lowther  was  severely  wounded.  This 
event  is  mentioned  in  Luttrell's  Diary,  April  1691. 


484  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

new  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  was  not  sufficiently  ready,  nor 
was  his  temper  sufficiently  callous  for  his  post.  He  had  neither 
adroitness  to  parry,  nor  fortitude  to  endure,  the  gibes  and  re- 
proaches to  which,  in  his  new  character  of  courtier  and  place- 
man, he  was  exposed.  There  was  also  something  to  he  done 
which  he  was  too  scrupulous  to  do  ;  something  which  had 
never  heen  done  by  Wolsey  or  Burleigh  ;  something  which  has 
never  been  done  by  any  English  statesman  of  our  generation  ; 
but  which,  from  the  time  of  Charles  the  Second  to  the  time  of 
George  the  Third,  was  one  of  the  most  important  parts  of  the 
business  of  a  minister. 

The  history  of  the  rise,  progress,  and  decline  of  parliament- 
ary corruption  in  England  still  remains  to  be  written.  No  sub- 
ject has  called  forth  a  greater  quantity  of  eloquent  vituperation 
and  stinging  sarcasm.  Three  generations  of  serious  and  of 
sportive  writers  wept  and  laughed  over  the  venality  of  the  sen- 
ate. That  venality  was  denounced  on  the  hustings,  anathematised 
from  the  pulpit,  and  burlesqued  on  the  stage ;  was  attacked  by 
Pope  in  brilliant  verse,  and  by  Bolingbroke  in  stately  prose, 
by  Swift  with  savage  hatred,  and  by  Gay  with  festive  malice. 
The  .voices  of  Tories  and  Wl.igs,  of  Johnson  and  Akenside, 
of  Smollett  and  Fielding,  contributed  to  swell  the  cry.  But 
none  of  those  who  railed  or  of  those  who  jested  took  the  trouble 
to  verify  the  phenomena,  or  to  trace  them  to  the  real  causes. 

Sometimes  the  evil  was  imputed  to  the  depravity  of  a  par- 
ticular minister:  but,  when  he  had  been  driven  from  power, 
and  when  those  who  had  most  loudly  accused  him  governed  in 
his  stead,  it  was  found  that  the  change  of  men  had  produced  no 
change  of  system.  Sometimes  the  evil  was  imputed  to  the  de- 
generacy of  the  national  character.  Luxury  and  cupidity,  it 
was  said,  had  produced  in  our  country  the  same  effect  which 
they  had  produced  of  old  in  the  Roman  republic.  The  modern 
Englishman  was  to  the  Englishman  of  the  sixteenth  century 
what  Verres  and  Curio  were  to  Dentatus  and  Fabricius.  Those 
who  held  this  language  were  as  ignorant  and  shallow  as  people 
generally  are  who  extol  the  past  at  the  expense  of  the  present. 
A  man  of  sense  would  have  perceived  that,  if  the  English  of 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  485 

the  time  of  George  the  Second  had  really  been  more  sordid  and 
dishonest  than  their  forefathers,  the  deterioration  would  not 
have  shown  itself  in  one  place  alone.  The  progress  of  judicial 
venality  and  of  official  venality  would  have  kept  pace  with  the 
progress  of  parliamentary  venality.  But  nothing  is  more  cer- 
tain than  that,  while  the  legislature  was  becoming  more  and 
more  venal,  the  courts  of  law  and  the  public  offices  were  becom- 
ing purer  and  purer.  The  representatives  of  the  people  were 
undoubtedly  more  mercenary  in  the  days  of  Hardwicke  and 
Pelham  than  in  the  days  of  the  Tudors.  But  the  Chancellors 
of  the  Tudors  took  plate,  jewels,  and  purses  of  broad  pieces,  from 
suitors  without  scruple  or  shame ;  and  Hardwicke  would  have 
committed  for  contempt  any  suitor  who  had  dared  to  bring  him 
a  present.  The  Treasurers  of  the  Tudors  raised  princely  for- 
tunes by  the  sale  of  places,  titles,  and  pardons  ;  and  Pelham 
would  have  ordered  his  servants  to  turn  out  of  his  house  any 
man  who  had  offered  him  money  for  a  peerage  or  a  commis- 
sionership  of  customs.  It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  the  prev- 
alence of  corruption  in  the  parliament  cannot  be  ascribed  to  a 
general  depravation  of  morals.  The  taint  was  local  :  we  must 
look  for  some  local  cause  ;  and  such  a  cause  will  without  diffi- 
culty be  found. 

Under  our  ancient  sovereigns  the  House  of  Commons  rarely 
interfered  with  the  executive  administration.  The  Speaker  was 
charged  not  to  let  the  members  meddle  with  matters  of  State. 
If  any  gentleman  was  very  troublesome,  he  was  cited  before  the 
Privy  Council,  interrogated,  reprimanded,  and  sent  to  meditate 
on  his  undutiful  conduct  in  the  Tower.  The  Commons  did 
their  best  to  protect  themselves  by  keeping  their  deliberations 
secret,  by  excluding  strangers,  by  making  it  a  crime  to  repeat 
out  of  doors  what  had  passed  within  doors.  But  these  precau- 
tions were  of  small  avail.  In  so  large  an  assembly  there  were 
always  talebearers,  ready  to  carry  the  evil  report  of  their  breth- 
ren to  the  palace.  To  oppose  .the  Court  was  therefore  a  service 
of  serious  danger.  In  those  days,  of  course,  there  was  little  or 
no  buying  of  votes.  For  an  honest  man  was  not  to  be  bought, 
and  it  was  much  cheaper  to  intimidate  or  to  coerce  a  knave 
than  to  buy  him. 


486  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

For  a  very  different  reason  there  has  been  no  direct  buying 
of  votes  within  the  memory  of  the  present  generation.  The 
House  of  Commons  is  now  supreme  in  the  State,  but  is  account- 
able to  the  nation.  Even  those  members  who  are  not  chosen 
by  large  constituent  bodies  are  kept  in  awe  by  public  opinion. 
Everything  is  printed  :  everything  is  discussed  :  every  material 
word  uttered  in  debate  is  read  by  a  million  of  people  on  the 
morrow.  Within  a  few  hours  after  an  important  division,  the 
lists  of  the  majority  and  the  minority  are  scanned  and  analysed 
in  every  town  from  Plymouth  to  Inverness.  If  a  name  be 
found  where  it  ought  not  to  be,  the  apostate  is  certain  to  be 
reminded  in  sharp  language  of  the  promises  which  he  has 
broken,  and  of  the  professions  which  he  has  belied.  At  present, 
therefore,  the  best  way  in  which  a  government  can  secure  the 
support  of  a  majority  of  the  representative  body  is  by  gaining 
the  Confidence  of  the  nation. 

But  between  the  time  when  our  Parliaments  ceased  to  be 
controlled  by  royal  prerogative  and  the  time  when  they  began 
to  be  constantly  and  effectually  controlled  by  public  opinion 
there  was  a  long  interval.  After  the  restoration,  no  government 
ventured  to  return  to  those  methods  by  which,  before  the  civil 
war,  the  freedom  of  deliberation  had  been  restrained.  A  mem- 
ber could  n.o  longer  be  called  to  account  for  his  harangues  or 
his  votes.  He  might  obstruct  the  passing  of  bills  of  supply : 
he  might  arraign  the  whole  foreign  policy  of  the  country  :  he 
might  lay  on  the  table  articles  of  impeachment  against  all  the 
chief  ministers  ;  and  he  ran  not  the  smallest  risk  of  being  treated 
as  Morrice  had  been  treated  by  Elizabeth,  or  Eliot  by  Charles 
the  First.  The  senator  now  stood  in  no  awe  of  the  Court 
Nevertheless  all  the  defences  behind  which  the  feeble  Parlia- 
ments of  the  sixteenth  century  had  entrenched  themselves 
ngainst  the  attacks  of  prerogative  were  not  only  still  kept  up, 
but  were  extended  and  strengthened.  No  politician  seems  to 
have  been  aware  that  these  defences  were  no  longer  needed  for 
their  original  purpose,  and  had  begun  to  serve  a  purpose  very 
different.  The  rules  which  had  been  originally  designed  to 
secure  faithful  representatives  against  the  displeasure  of  the 


•WILLIAM    AXD    MART.  487 

Sovereign,  now  operated  to  secure  unfaithful  representatives 
against  the  displeasure  of  the  people,  and  proved  much  more 
effectual  for  the  latter  end  than  they  had  ever  been  for  the 
former.  It  was  natural,  it  was  inevitable,  that,  in  a  legislative 
body  emancipated  from  the  restraints  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
and  not  yet  subjected  to  the  restraints  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
in  a  legislative  body  which  feared  neither  the  King  nor  the 
public,  there  should  be  corruption. 

The  plague  spot  began  to  be  visible  and  palpable  in  the 
days  of  the  Cabal.  Clifford,  the  boldest  and  fiercest  of  the 
wicked  Five,  had  the  merit  of  discovering  that  a  noisy  patriot, 
whom  it  was  no  longer  possible  to  send  to  prison,  might  be 
turned  into  a  courtier  by  a  goldsmith's  note.  Clifford's  example 
was  followed  by  his  successors.  It  soon  became  a  proverb  that 
a  Parliament  resembled  a  pump.  Often,  the  wits  said,  when  a 
pump  appears  to  be  dry,  if  a  very  small  quantity  of  water  is 
poured  in,  a  great  quantity  of  water  gushes  out :  and  so,  when 
a  Parliament  appears  to  be  niggardly,  ten  thousand  pounds 
judiciously  given  in  bribes  will  often  produce  a  million  in  sup- 
plies. The  evil  was  not  diminished,  nay,  it  was  aggravated,  by 
that  Revolution  which  freed  our  country  from  so  many  other 
evils.  The  House  of  Commons  was  now  more  powerful  than 
ever  as  against  the  Crown,  and  yet  was  not  more  strictly  re- 
sponsible than  formerly  to  the  nation.  The  government  had  a 
new  motive  for  buying  the  members ;  and  the  members  had  no 
new  motive  for  refusing  to  sell  themselves;  William, indeed, 
had  an  aversion  to  bribery :  he  resolved  to  abstain  from  it ;  and 
during  the  first  year  of  his  reign,  he  kept  his  resolution.  Unhap- 
pily the  events  of  that  year  did  not  encourage  him  to  persevere 
iu  his  good  intentions.  As  soon  as  Caermarthen  was  placed  at 
the  head  of  the  internal  administration  of  the  realm,  a  complete 
change  took  place.  He  was  in  truth  no  novice  in  the  art  of  pur- 
chasing votes.  He  had,  sixteen  years  before,  succeeded  Clifford 
at  the  Treasury,  had  inherited  Clifford's  tactics,  hud  improved 
upon  them,  and  had  employed  them  to  an  extent  which  would 
have  amazed  the  inventor.  From  the  day  on  which  Caermar- 
theu  was  called  a  second  time  to  the  chief  direction  of  affairs, 


488  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

parliamentary  corruption  continued  to  be  practised,  with  scarce- 
ly any  intermission,  by  a  long  succession  of  statesmen,  till  the 
close  of  the  American  war.  Neither  of  the  great  English  par- 
ties can  justly  charge  the  other  with  any  peculiar  guilt  on  this 
account.  The  Tories  were  the  first  who  introduced  the  system 
and  the  last  who  clung  to  it :  but  it  attained  its  greatest  vigour 
in  the  time  of  Whig  ascendency.  The  extent  to  which  parlia- 
mentary support  was  bartered  for  money  cannot  be  with  any  pre- 
cision ascertained.  But  it  seems  probable  that  the  number  of 
hirelings  was  greatly  exaggerated  by  vulgar  report,  and  was 
never  large,  though  often  sufficient  to  turn  the  scale  on  impor- 
tant divisions.  An  unprincipled  minister  eagerly  accepted  the 
services  of  these  mercenaries.  An  honest  minister  reluctantly 
submitted,  for  the  sake  of  the  commonwealth,  to  what  he  con- 
sidered as  a  shameful  and  odious  extortion.  But  during  many 
years  every  minister,  whatever  his  personal  character  might  be, 
consented,  willingly  or  unwillingly,  to  manage  the  Parliament 
in  the  only  way  in  which  the  Parliament  could  then  be  managed. 
It  at  length  became  as  notorious  that  there  was  a  market  for 
votes  at  the  Treasury  as  that  there  was  a  market  for  cattle  in 
Smithfield.  Numerous  demagogues  out  of  power  declaimed 
against  this  vile  traffic  :  but  every  one  of  those  demagogues,  as 
soon  as  he  was  in  power,  found  himself  driven  by  a  kind  of  fa- 
tality to  engage  in  that  traffic,  or  at  least  to  connive  at  it.  Now 
and  then  perhaps  a  man  who  had  romantic  notions  of  public  vir- 
tue refused  to  be  himself  the  paymaster  of  the  corrupt  crew, 
and  averted  his  eyes  while  his  less  scrupulous  colleagues  did  that 
which  he  knew  to  be  indispensable,  and  yet  felt  to  be  degrading. 
But  the  instances  of  this  prudery  were  rare  indeed.  The  doc- 
trine generally  received,  even  among  upright  and  honourable 
politicians,  was  that  it  was  shameful  to  receive  bribes,  but  that  it 
was  necessary  to  distribute  them.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that 
the  evil  reached  the  greatest  height  during  the  administration  of 
Henry  Pelham,  a  statesman  of  good  intentions,  of  spotless  mor- 
als in  private  life,  and  of  exemplary  disinterestedness.  It  is 
not  difficult  to  guess  by  what  arguments  he  and  other  well  mean- 
ing men,  who,  like  him,  followed  the  fashion  of  their  age,  quieted 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  489 

their  consciences.  No  casuist,  however  severe,  has  denied 
that  it  may  be  a  duty  to  give  what  it  is  a  crime  to  take.  It  was 
infamous  in  Jeffreys  to  demand  money  for  the  lives  of  the  un- 
happy prisoners  whom  he  tried  at  Dorchester  and  Taunton.  But 
it  was  not  infamous,  nay,  it  was  laudable,  in  the  kinsmen  and 
friends  of  a  prisoner  to  contribute  of  their  substance  in  order  to 
make  up  a  purse  for  Jeffreys.  The  Sallee  rover,  who  threat- 
ened to  bastinado  a  Christian  captive  to  death  unless  a  ransom 
was  forthcoming,  was  an  odious  ruffian.  But  to  ransom  a  Chris- 
tian captive  from  a  Sallee  rover  was,  not  merely  an  innocent, 
but  a  highly  meritorious  act.  It  is  improper  in  such  cases  to 
use  the  word  corruption.  Those  who  receive  the  filthy  lucre  are 
corrupt  already.  He  who  bribes  them  does  not  make  them  wick- 
ed :  he  finds  them  so  ;  and  he  merely  prevents  their  evil  pro- 
pensities from  producing  evil  effects.  And  might  not  the  same 
plea  be  urged  in  defence  of  a  minister  who,  when  no  other  ex- 
pedient would  avail,  paid  greedy  and  lowminded  members  of 
parliament  not  to  ruin  their  country  ? 

It  was  by  some  such  reasoning  as  this  that  the  scruples  of 
William  were  overcome.  Honest  Burnet,  with  the  uncourtly 
courage  which  distinguished  him,  ventured  to  remonstrate  with 
the  King.  "  Nobody,"  William  answered,  "  hates  bribery  more 
than  I.  But  I  have  to  do  with  a  set  of  men  who  must  be  man- 
aged in  this  vile  way  or  not  at  all.  I  must  strain  a  point  :  or 
the  country  is  lost."  * 

It  was  necessary  for  the  Lord  President  to  have  iu  the 
House  of  Commons  an  agent  for  the  purchase  of  members  ;  and 
Lowther  was  both  too  awkward  and  too  scrupulous  to  be  such 
an  agent.  But  a  man  in  whom  craft  and  profligacy  were  united 
in  a  high  degree,  was  without  difficulty  found.  This  was  the 
Master  of  the  Rolls,  Sir  John  Trevor,  who  had  been  Speaker 
in  the  single  Parliament  held  bv  James.  High  as  Trevor  had 

o  *•  *-? 

risen  in  the  world,  there  were  people  who  could  still  remember 
him  a  strange  looking  clerk  in  the  Inner  Temple.  Indeed,  nobody 
who  had  ever  seen  him  was  likely  to  forget  him.  For  his  grotesque 
features  and  his  hideous  squint  were  far  beyond  the  reach  of  car 
»  Burnet,  ii.  7G. 


490  -HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

icature.  His  parts,  which  were  quick  and  vigorous,  had  enabled 
him  early  to  master  the  science  of  chicane.  Gambling  and  bet- 
ting were  his  amusements  ;  and  out  of  these  amusements  he 
contrived  to  extract  much  business  in  the  way  of  his  profes- 
sion. For  his  opinion  on  a  question  arising  out  of  a  wager  or 
a  game  at  chance  had  as  much  authority  as  a  judgment  of  any 
court  in  Westminster  Hall.  He  soon  rose  to  be  one  of  the  boon 
companions  whom  Jeffreys  hugged  in  fits  of  maudlin  friendship 
over  the  bottle  at  night,  and  cursed  and  reviled  in  court  on  the 
morrow.  Under  such  a  teacher,  Trevor  rapidly  became  a  pro- 
ficient in  that  peculiar  kind  of  rhetoric  which  had  enlivened  the 
trials  of  Baxter  and  of  Alice  Lisle.  Report  indeed  spoke  of 
some  scolding  matches  between  the  Chancellor  and  his  friend, 
in  which  the  disciple  had  been  not  less  voluble  and  scurrilous 
than  the  master.  These  contests,  however,  did  not  take  place 
till  the  younger  adventurer  had  attained  riches  and  dignities 
such  that  he  no  longer  stood  in  need  of  the  patronage  which 
had  raised  him.*  Among  High  Churchmen  Trevor,  in  spite  of 
his  notorious  want  of  principle,  had  at  this  time  a  certain  popu- 
larity, which  he  seems  to  have  owed  chiefly  to  their  conviction 
that,  however  insincere  he  might  be  in  general,  his  hatred  of  the 
dissenters  was  genuine  and  hearty.  There  was  little  doubt 
that,  in  a  House  of  Commons  in  which  the  Tories  had  a  majority, 
he  might  easily,  with  the  support  of  the  Court,  be  chosen 
Speaker.  He  was  impatient  to  be  again  in  his  old  post,  which 
he  well  knew  how  to  make  one  of  the  most  lucrative  in  the 
kingdom ;  and  he  willingly  undertook  that  secret  and  shameful 
office  for  which  Lowther  was  altogether  unqualified. 

Richard  Hampden  was  appointed  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer. This  appointment  was  probably  intended  as  a  mark 
of  royal  gratitude  for  the  moderation  of  his  conduct,  and  for  the 
attempts  which  he  had  made  to  curb  the  violence  of  his  Whig 
friends,  and  especially  of  his  son. 

Godolphin  voluntarily  left  the  Treasury  ;  why,  we  are  not 
informed.  We  can  scarcely  doubt  that  the  dissolution  and  the 
result  of  the  general  election  must  have  given  him  pleasure. 

*  Roger  North's  Life  of  G.iildford. 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  491 

For  his  political  opinions  leaned  towards  Toryism  ;  and  he  had, 
in  the  late  reign,  done  some  things  which,  though  not  very 
heinous,  stood  in  need  of  an  indemnity.  It  is  probable  that  he 
did  not  think  it  compatible  with  his  personal  dignity  to  sit  at 
the  Board  below  Lowther,  who  was  in  rank  his  inferior.* 

A  new  Commission  of  Admiralty  was  issued.  At  the  head 
of  the  naval  administration  was  placed  Thomas  Herbert,  Earl 
of  Pembroke,  a  high  born  and  high  bred  man,  who  had  ranked 
among  the  Tories,  who  had  voted  for  a  Regency,  and  who  had 
married  the  daughter  of  Sawyer.  That  Pembroke's  Toryism, 
however,  was  not  of  a  narrow  and  illiberal  kind  is  sufficiently 
proved  by  the  fact  that,  immediately  after  the  Revolution,  the 
Essay  on  the  Human  Understanding  was  dedicated  to  him  by 
John  Locke,  in  token  of  gratitude  for  kind  offices  done  in  evil 
times. f 

Nothing  was  omitted  which  could  reconcile  Torrington  to 
this  change.  For,  though  he  had  been  found  an  incapable 
administrator,  he  still  stood  so  high  in  general  estimation  as  a 
seaman  that  the  government  was  unwilling  to  lose  his  services. 
He  was  assured  that  no  slight  was  intended  to  him.  He  could 
not  serve  his  country  at  once  on  the  ocean  and  at  Westminster; 
and  it  had  been  thought  less  difficult  to  supply  his  place  in  his 
office  than  on  the  deck  of  his  flag  ship.  He  was  at  first  very 
angry,  and  actually  laid  down  his  commission  :  but  some  con- 
cessions were  made  to  his  pride  :  a  pension  of  three  thousand 
pounds  a  year  and  a  grant  of  ten  thousand  acres  of  crown  land 
in  the  Peterborough  level  were  irresistible  baits  to  his  cupidity  ; 
and,  in  an  evil  hour  for  England,  he  consented  to  remain  at  the 
head  of  the  naval  force  on  which  the  safety  of  her  coasts  de- 
pended. $ 

*  Till  some  years  after  this  time  the  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  was  always  the 
man  of  highest  rank  at  the  Board.  Thus  Monmouth,  Delamere,  and  Godolphin 
tx>U  their  places  according  to  the  order  of  precedence  in  which  they  stood  as 
peers. 

t  The  dedication,  however,  was  thought  too  laudatory.  "  The  only  thing,  Mr. 
Pone  used  to  say,  he  could  never  forjrive  his  philosophic  master  was  the  dedica- 
tion to  the  Essay." — Rnffhead's  Life  of  Pope. 

$  Van  Citters  to  the  States  General,  -^-^-1630  ;  Narcissus  Luttrell's  Diary  ; 

jlay  5, 

Treasury  Letter  Book,  Feb.  4,  1669-90. 


492  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

"While   these   changes   were   making   in  the   offices   round 
Whitehall,  the  Commissions  of  Lieutenancy  all  over  the  king- 
dom  were   revised.     The  Tories  had,  during  twelve  months, 
been  complaining  that  their  share  in  the  government  of  the  dis- 
tricts in  which  they  lived  bore  no  proportion  to  their  number, 
to  their  wealth,  and  to  the  consideration  which  they  enjoyed  in 
society.     They  now  regained  with  great  delight  their  former 
position  in  their  shires.     The  Whigs  raised  a  cry  that  the  King 
was  foully  betrayed,  and  that  he  had  been  induced  by  evil  coun- 
sellors to  put  the  sword  into  the  hands  of  men  who,  as  soon  as 
a  favourable  opportunity  offered,  would  turn  the  edge  against 
himself.     In  a  dialogue  which  was  believed  to  have  been  writ- 
ten by  the  newly  created  Earl  of  Warrington,  and  which  had 
a  wide  circulation  at  the  time,  but  has  long  been  forgotten,  the 
Lord  Lieutenant  of  a  county  was  introduced  expressing  his  ap- 
prehensions that  the  majority  of  his  deputies   were  traitors  at 
heart.*     But  nowhere  was  the  excitement  produced  by  the  new 
distribution  of  power  so  great  as  in   the   capital.     By   a  Com- 
mission of  Lieutenancy  which  had  been  issued  immediately  after 
the  Revolution,  the  trainbands  of  London  had  been  put  under 
the  command  of  stanch  Whigs.     Those  powerful  and  opulent 
citizens  whose  names  were  omitted  alleged  that  the  list  was 
filled  with  elders  of  Puritan  congregations,  with  Shaftesbury's 
brisk  boys,  with  Rye  House  plotters,  and  that  it  was   scarcely 
possible  to  find,  mingled  with  that  multitude  of  fanatics  and  lev- 
ellers, a  single  man  sincerely  attached  to  monarchy  and  to  the 
Church.     A  new  Commission  now  appeared   framed  by  Caer- 
marthen  and  Nottingham.     They  had  taken  counsel  with  Comp- 
ton,  the  Bishop  of  the  diocese;  and  Compton  was  not  a  very 
discreet  adviser.     He  had  originally  been  a  High  Churchman 
and  a  Tory.     The  severity  with  which  he  had  been  treated  in 
the  late  reign  had  transformed  him  into  a  Latitudinarian  and  a 
rebel  ;  and  he  had  now,  from  jealousy  of  Tillotson,  turned  High 
Qhurchman  and  Tory  again.     The  changes  which  were  made 

*  The  Dialogue  between  a  Lord  Lieutenant  and  one  of  his  Deputies  will  not 
be  found  in  the  collection  of  Warrington's  writings  which  was  published  in 
1694,  under  the  sanction,  as  it  should  seem,  of  his  family. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  493 

by  his  recommerrdation  raised  a  storm  in  the  City.  The  Whigs 
complained  that  they  were  ungratefully  proscribed  by  a  govern- 
ment which  owed  its  existence  to  them  ;  that  some  of  the  best 
friends  of  King  William  had  been  dismissed  with  contumely  to 
make  room  for  some  of  his  worst  enemies,  for  men  who  were  as 
unworthy  of  trust  as  any  Irish  Rapparee,  for  men  who  had  de- 
livered up  to  a  tyrant  the  charter  and  the  immemorial  privi- 
leges of  London,  for  men  who  had  made  themselves  notorious 
by  the  cruelty  with  which  they  had  enforced  the  penal  laws 
against  Protestant  dissenters,  nay,  for  men  who  had  sate  on 
those  juries  which  had  found  Russell  and  Cornish  guilty.*  The 
discontent  was  so  great  that  it  seemed,  during  a  short  time,  likely 
to  cause  pecuniary  embarrassment  to  the  State.  The  supplies 
voted  by  the  late  Parliament  came  in  slowly.  The  wants  of 
the  public  service  were  pressing.  In  such  circumstances  it  was 
to  the  citizens  of  the  capital  that  the  government  always  looked 
for  help ;  and  the  government  of  William  had  hitherto  looked 
especially  to  those  citizens  who  professed  Whig  opinions.  Things 
were  now  changed.  A  few  eminent  Whigs,  in  their  first  anger, 
sullenly  refused  to  advance  money.  Nay,  one  or  two  unexpect- 
edly withdrew  considerable  sums  from  the  Exchequer.!  The 
financial  difficulties  might  have  been  serious,  had  not  some 
wealthy  Tories,  who,  if  Sacheverell's  clause  had  become  law, 
would  have  been  excluded  from  all  municipal  honours,  offered 
the  Treasury  a  hundred  thousand  pounds  down,  and  promised 
to  raise  a  still  larger  sum.$ 

While  the  City  was  thus  agitated,  came  a  day  appointed  by 
royal  proclamation  for  a  general  fast.  The  reasons  assigned 
for  this  solemn  act  of  devotion  were  the  lamentable  state  of 
Ireland  and  the  approaching  departure  of  the  King.  Prayers 
were  offered  up  for  the  safety  of  His  Majesty's  person  and  for 

*  Van  Citters  to  the  States  General,  March  18-28,  April  4-14,  1690  ;  Narcissus 
Luttrell's  Diary  ;  Burnet,  ii.  72.  The  Triennial  Mayor,  or  the  Rapparees,  a  Poem, 
1691.  The  poet  says  of  one  of  the  new  civil  functionaries  : 

"  Soon  his  pretence  to  conscience  we  can  rout. 
And  in  a  bloody  jury  find  him  out. 
Where  noble  Pubhus  worried  was  with  rogues." 

t  Treasury  Minute  Book,  Feb.  5,  1689-90. 

t  Van  Citters,  Feb.  11-21,  Mar.  14-24,  Mar.  18  28,  1690. 


49-i  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

the  success  of  his  arms.  The  churches  of  London  were  crowd- 
ed. The  most  eminent  preachers  of  the  capital,  who  were,  with 
scarcely  an  exception,  either  moderate  Tories  or  moderate 
Whigs,  did  their  best  to  calm  the  public  mind,  and  earnestly  ex- 
horted their  flocks  not  to  withhold,  at  this  great  conjuncture,  a 
hearty  support  from  the  prince,  with  whose  fate  was  bound  up 
the  fate  of  the  whole  nation.  Burnet  told  a  large  congregation 
from  the  pulpit  how  the  Greeks,  when  the  Great  Turk  was  pre- 
paring to  besiege  Constantinople,  could  not  be  persuaded  to  con- 
tribute any  part  of  their  wealth  for  the  common  defence,  and 
how  bitterly  they  repented  of  their  avarice  when  they  were  com- 
pelled to  deliver  up  to  the  victorious  infidels  the  treasures 
which  had  been  refused  to  the  supplications  of  the  last  Christian 
emperor.* 

The  Whigs,  however,  as  a  party,  did  not  stand  in  need  of 
such  an  admonition.  Grieved  and  angry  as  they  were,  they 
were  perfectly  sensible  that  on  the  stability  of  the  throne  of 
William  depended  all  that  they  most  highly  prized.  What 
soirfe  of  them  might,  at  this  conjuncture,  have  been  tempted  to 
do  if  they  could  have  found  another  leader,  if,  for  example, 
their  Protestant  Duke,  their  King  Monmouth,  had  still  been, 
living,  may  be  doubted.  But  their  only  choice  was  between  the 
Sovereign  whom  they  had  set  up  and  the  Sovereign  whom  they 
had  pulled  down.  It  would  have  been  strange  indeed  if  they 
had  taken  part  with  James  in  order  to  punish  William,  when 
the  worst  fault  which  they  imputed  to  William  was  that  he  did 
not  participate  in  the  vindictive  feeling  with  which  they  remem- 
bered the  tyranny  of  James.  Much  as  they  disliked  the  Bill  of 
Indemnity,  they  had  not  forgotten  the  Bloody  Circuit.  They 
therefore,  even  in  their  ill  humour,  continued  true  to  their  own 
King,  and,  while  grumbling  at  him,  were  ready  to  stand  by  him 
against  his  adversary  with  their  lives  and  fortunes-! 

There  were  indeed  exceptions  :  but  they  were  very  few ; 
and  they  were  to  be  found  almost  exclusively  in  two  classes, 

*  Van  Citters,  March  14-26,  1C90.  But  he  is  mistaken  as  to  the  preacher.  The 
Bermon  is  extant.  It  was  preached  at  Bow  Church  before  the  Court  of  Alder- 
men. 

t  Welwood's  Mercmius  Reformatus,  Feb.  12,  1690. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  495 

which,  though  widely  differing  from  each  other  in  social  posi- 
tiou,  closely  resembled  each  other  in  laxity  of  principle.  All 
the  Whigs  who  are  known  to  have  trafficked  with  Saint  Ger- 
mains,  belonged,  not  to  the  main  body  of  the  party,  but  either  to 
the  head  or  to  the  tail.  They  were  either  patricians  high  in 
rank  and  office,  or  caitiffs  who  had  long  been  employed  in  the 
foulest  drudgery  of  faction.  To  the  former  class  belonged 
Shrewsbury.  Of  the  latter  class  the  most  remarkable  specimen 
was  Robert  Ferguson.  From  the  day  on  which  the  Convention 
Parliament  was  dissolved,  Shrewsbury  began  to  waver  in  his 
allegiance :  but  that  he  had  ever  wavered  was  not,  till  long 
after,  suspected  by  the  public.  That  Ferguson  had,  a  few 
months  after  the  Revolution,  become  a  furious  Jacobite,  was  no 
secret. to  anybody,  and  ought  not  to  have  been  matter  of  surprise 
to  anybody.  For  his  apostasy  he  could  not  plead  even  the  miser- 
able excuse  that  he  had  been  neglected.  The  ignominious  ser- 
vices which  he  had  formerly  rendered  to  his  party  as  a  spy,  a 
raiser  of  riots,  a  dispenser  of  bribes,  a  writer  of  libels,  a  prompt- 
er of  false  witnesses,  had  been  rewarded  only  too  prodigally 
for  the  honour  of  the  new  government.  That  he  should  hold 
any  high  office  was  of  course  impossible:  But  a  sinecure  place 
of  live  hundred  a  year  had  been  created  for  him  in  the  depart- 
ment of  the  Excise.  He  now  had  what  to  him  was  opulence  : 
but  opulence  did  not  satisfy  him.  For  money  indeed  he  had 
never  scrupled  to  be  guilty  of  fraud  aggravated  by  hypocrisy  : 
yet  the  love  of  money  was  not  his  strongest  passion.  Long 
habit  had  developed  in  him  a  moral  disease  from  which  people  who 
have  made  political  agitation  their  calling  are  seldom  wholly  free. 
He  could  not  be  quiet.  Sedition,  from  being  his  business,  had 
become  his  pleasure.  It  was  as  impossible  for  him  to  live  without 
doing  mischief  as  for  an  old  dram  drinker  or  an  old  opium  eater 
to  live  without  the  daily  dose  of  poison.  The  very  discomforts 
and  hazards  of  a  lawless  life  had  a  strange  attraction  for  him. 
He  could  no  more  be  turned  into  a  peaceable  and  loyal  subject 
than  the  fox  can  be  turned  into  a  shepherd's  dog,  or  than  the  kite 
can  be  taught  the  habits  of  the  barn  door  fowl.  The  Red  In- 
dian prefers  his  hunting  ground  to  cultivated  fields  and  stately 


496  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

cities:  ih:  gipsy,  sheltered  by  a  commodious  roof,  and  pro- 
vided with  meat  in  due  season,  still  pines  for  the  ragged  tent 
on  the  moorland  the  chance  meal  of  carrion  ;  and  even  so  Fer- 
guson became  weary  of  plenty  and  security,  of  his  salary,  his 
house,  his  table,  and  his  coach,  and  longed  to  be  again  the  presi- 
dent of  societies  into  which  none  could  enter  without  a  pass- 
word, the  director  of  secret  presses,  the  distributor  of  inflam- 
matory pamphlets;  to  see  the  walls  placarded  with  descriptions 
of  his  person  and  offers  of  reward  for  his  apprehension  ;  to  have 
six  or  seven  names,  with  a  different  wig  arid  cloak  for  each,  and 
to  change  his  lodgings  thrice  a  week  at  dead  of  night.  His 
hostility  was  not  to  Popery  or  to  Protestantism,  to  monarchical 
government  or  to  republican  government,  to  the  House  of  Stuart 
or  to  the  House  of  Nassau,  but  to  whatever  was  at  the  time 
established. 

By  the  Jacobites  this  new  ally  was  eagerly  welcomed.  They 
were  at  that  moment  busied  with  schemes  in  which  the  help  of 
a  veteran  plotter  was  much  needed.  There  had  been  a  great 
stir  among  them  from  the  day  on  which  it  had  been  announced 
that  William  had  determined  to  take  the  command  in  Ireland  ; 
and  they  were  all  looking  forward  with  impatient  hope  to  his 
departure.  He  was  not  one  of  those  princes  against  whom  men 
lightly  venture  to  set  up  a  standard  of  rebellion.  His  courage, 
his  sagacity,  the  secrecy  of  his  counsels,  the  success  which  had 
generally  crowned  his  enterprises,  overawed  the  vulgar.  Even 

his  most  acrimonious   enemies  feared  him  at  least  as   much  as 

* 

they  hated  him.  While  he  was  at  Kensington,  ready  to  take 
horse  at  a  moment's  notice,  malecontents  who  prized  their 
heads  and  their  estates  were  generally  content  to  vent  their 
hatred  by  drinking  confusion  to  his  hooked  nose,  and  by  squeez- 
ing with  significant  energy  the  orange  which  was  his  emblem. 
But  their  courage  rose  when  they  reflected  that  the  sea  would 
soon  roll  between  him  and  our  island.  In  the  military  and 
political  calculations  of  that  age,  thirty  leagues  of  water  were 
as  important  as  three  hundred  leagues  now  are.  The  winds 
and  waves  frequently  interrupted  all  communication  between 
England  and  Ireland.  It  sometimes  happened  that,  during  a 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  497 

fortnight  or  three  weeks,  not  a  word  of  intelligence  from  Lon- 
don reached  Dublin.  Twenty  English  counties  might  be  up  in 
arms  long  before  any  rumour  that  an  insurrection  was  even 
apprehended  could  reach  Ulster.  Early  in  the  spring,  there- 
fore, the  leading  malecontents  assembled  in  London  for  the 
purpose  of  concerting  an  extensive  plan  of  action,  and  corres- 
ponded assiduously  both  with  France  and  with  Ireland. 

Such  was  the  temper  of  the  English  factions  when,  on  the 
twentieth  of  March,  the  new  Parliament  met.  The  first  duty 
which  the  Commons  had  to  perform  was  that  of  choosing  a 
Speaker.  Trevor  was  proposed  by  Lowther,  was  elected  with- 
out opposition,  and  was  presented  and  approved  with  the  ordi- 
nary ceremonial.  The  King  then  made  a  speech  in  which  he 
especially  recommended  to  the  consideration  of  the  Houses  two 
important  subjects,  the  settling  of  the  revenue  and  the  granting 
of  an  amnesty.  He  represented  strongly  the  necessity  of  des- 
patch. Every  day  was  precious,  the  season  for  action  was  ap- 
proaching. "  Let  not  us,"  he  said,  "  be  engaged  in  debates 
while  our  enemies  are  in  the  field."  * 

The  first  subject  which  the  Commons  took  into  consideration 
was  the  state  of  the  revenue.  A  great  part  of  the  taxes  had, 
since  the  accession  of  William  and  Mary,  been  collected  under 
the  authority  of  Acts  passed  for  short  terms,  and  it  was  now 
time  to  determine  on  a  permanent  arrangement.  A  list  of  the 
salaries  and  pensions  for  which  provision  was  to  be  made  was 
laid  before  the  House ;  and  the  amount  of  the  suras  thus  ex- 
pended called  forth  very  just  complaints  from  the  independent 
members,  among  whom. Sir  Charles  Sedley  distinguished  him- 
self by  his  sarcastic  pleasantry.  A  clever  speech  which  he 
made  against  the  placemen  stole  into  print  and  was  widely  circu- 
lated :  it  has  since  been  often  republished  ;  and  it  proves,  what 
his  poems  and  plays  might  make  us  doubt,  that  his  contempo- 
raries were  not  mistaken  in  considering  him  as  a  man  of  parts 
and  vivacity.  Unfortunately  the  ill  humour  which  the  sight  of 
the  Civil  List  caused  evaporated  in  jests  and  invectives  with- 
out producing  any  reform. 

«  Commons'  Journals,  March  20,  21,  22,  1CSD-90. 

VOL.  III.— 32 


498  HISTOUY    OF    ENGLAND. 

The  ordinary  revenue  by  which  the  government  had  been  sup- 
ported before  the  Revolution  had  been  partly  hereditary,  and  had 
been  partly  drawn  from  taxes  granted  to  each  sovereign  for  life. 
The  hereditary  revenue  had  passed,  with  the  crown,  to  William 
and  Mary.  It  was  derived  from  the  rents  of  the  royal  domains, 
from  fees,  from  fines,  from  wine  licenses,  fro;u  the  first  fruits 
and  tenths  of  benefices,  from  the  receipts  of  the  Post  Office,  and 
from  that  part  of  the  excise  which  had,  immediately  after  the 
Restoration,  been  granted  to  Charles  the  Second  and  to  his  suc- 
cessors for  ever  in  lieu  of  the  feudal  services  due  to  our  ancient 
kings.  The  income  from  all  these  sources  was  estimated  at  be- 
tween four  and  five  hundred  thousand  pounds.* 

Those  duties  of  excise  and  customs  which  had  been  granted 
to  James  for  life  had,  at  the  close  of  his  reign,  yielded  about 
nine  hundred  thousand  pounds  annually.  William  naturally 
wished  to  have  this  income  on  the  same  terms  on  which  his 
Uncle  had  enjoyed  it ;  and  his  ministers  did  their  best  to  gratify 
his  wishes.  Lowther  moved  that  the  grant  should  be  to  the 
King  and  Queen  for  their  joint  and  separate  lives,  and  spoke 
repeatedly  and  earnestly  in  defence  of  this  motion.  He  set  forth 
William's  claims  to  public  gratitude  and  confidence  ;  the  nation 
rescued  from  Popery  and  arbitrary  power ;  the  Church  deliv- 
ered from  persecution ;  the  constitution  established  on  a  firm 
basis.  Would  the  Commons  deal  grudgingly  with  a  prince  who 
had  done  more  for  England  than  had  ever  been  done  for  her 
by  any  of  his  predecessors  in  so  short  a  time,  with  a  prince  who 
was  now  about  to  expose  himself  to  hostile  weapons  and  pesti- 
lential air  in  order  to  preserve  the  English  colony  in  Ireland, 
with  a  prince  who  was  prayed  for  in  every  corner  of  the  world 
where  a  congregation  of  Protestants  could  meet  for  the  wor- 
ship of  God  ?  f  But  on  this  subject  Lowther  harangued  in  vain. 
Whigs  and  Tories  were  equally  fixed  in  the  opinion  that  the 
liberality  of  Parliaments  had  been  the  chief  cause  of  the  disas- 
ters of  the  last  thirty  years ;  that  to  the  liberality  of  the  Parlia- 
meutof  1GGO  was  to  be  ascribed  the  misgovernment  of  the  Cabal, 

*  Commons'  Journals,  March  28,  1C90,  and  March  1,  and  March  20, 1688-9. 

*  Grey's  Debates,  March  27,  and  28,  1690 


WILLIAM   ASD    MART.  499 

that  to  the  liberality  of  the  Parliament  of  1G85  was  to  be  as- 
cribed the  Declaration  of  Indulgence, -and  that  the  Parliament 
of  1690  would  be  inexcusable  if  it  did  not  profit  by  experience. 
After  much  dispute  a  compromise  was  made.  That  portion  of 
the  excise  which  had  been  settled  for  life  on  James,  and  which 
was  estimated  at  three  hundred  thousand  pounds  a  year,  was 
settled  on  William  and  Mary  for  their  joint  and  separate  lives. 
It  was  supposed  that  with  the  hereditary  revenue,  and  with 
three  hundred  thousand  a  year  more  from  the  excise,  Their 
Majesties  would  have,  independent  of  parliamentary  control, 
between  seven  and  eight  hundred  thousand  a  year.  Out  of  this 
income  was  to  be  defrayed  the  charge  both  of  the  royal  house- 
hold and  of  those  civil  offices  of  which  a  list  had  been,  laid 
before  the  House.  This  income  was  therefore  called  the  Civil 
List.  The  expenses  of  the  royal  household  are  now  entirely 
separated  from  the  expenses  of  the  civil  government :  but,  by  a 
whimsical  perversion,  the  name  of  Civil  List  has  remained 
attached  to  that  portion  of  the  revenue  which  is  appropriated  to 
the  expenses  of  the  royal  household.  It  is  still  more  strange 
that  several  neighbouring  nations  should  have  thought  this  most 
unmeaning  of  all  names  worth  borrowing.  Those  duties  of 
customs  which  had  been  settled  for  life  on  Charles  and  James 
successively,  and  which,  in  the  year  before  the  Revolution,  had 
yielded  six  hundred  thousand  pounds,  were  granted  to  the 
Crown  for  a  term  of  only  four  years.* 

William  was  by  no  means  well  pleased  with  this  arrange- 
ment. He  thought  it  unjust  and  ungrateful  in  a  people  whose 
liberties  he  had  saved  to  bind  him  over  to  his  good  behaviour. 
';  The  gentlemen  of  England,"  he  said  to  Burnet,  "  trusted  King 
James  who  was  an  enemy  of  their  religion  and  of  their  laws  ; 
and  they  will  not  trust  me  by  whom  their  religion  and  their  laws 
have  been  preserved."  Burnet  answered  very  properly  that 
there  was  no  mark  of  personal  confidence  which  Ilis  Majesty 
was  not  entitled  to  demand,  but  that  this  question  was  not  a 

*  Commons'  Journals,  Mar.  28,  1690.  A  very  clear  and  exact  account  of  the 
way  in  which  the  revenue  was  settled  was  sent  by  Van  Citters  to  the  States  Gen- 
eral, April  7-17,  1690. 


500  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

question  of  personal  confidence.  The  Estates  of  the  Realm 
wished  to  establish  a  general  principle.  They  wished  to  set  a 
precedent  which  might  secure  a  remote  posterity  against  evils 
such  as  the  indiscreet  liberality  of  former  parliaments  had  pro- 
duced. "  From  those  evils  Your  Majesty  has  delivered  this 
generation.  By  accepting  the  gift  of  the  Commons  on  tho 
terms  on  which  it  is  offered  Your  Majesty  will  be  also  a  deliv- 
erer of  future  generations."  William  was  not  convinced :  but 
he  had  too  much  wisdom  and  self-command  to  give  way  to  his 
ill  humour,  and  he  accepted  graciously  what  he  could  not  but 
consider  as  ungraciously  given.* 

The  Civil  List  was  charged  with  an  annuity  of  twenty  thou- 
sand pounds  to  the  Princess  of  Denmark,  in-  addition  to  an  an- 
nuity of  thirty  thousand  pounds  which  had  been  settled  on  her 
at  the  time  of  her  marriage.  This  arrangement  was  the  result 
of  a  compromise  which  had  been  effected  with  much  difficulty 
and  after  miny  irritating  disputes.  The  King  and  Queen  had 
never,  since  the  commencement  of  their  reign,  been  on  very 
good  terms  with  their  sister.  That  William  should  have  been 
disliked  by  a  woman  who  had  just  sense  enough  to  perceive  that 
his  temper  was  sour  and  his  manners  repulsive,  and  who  was 
utterly  incapable  of  appreciating  his  higher  qualities,  is  not 
extraordinary.  But  Mary  was  made  to  be  loved.  So  lively 
and  intelligent  a  woman  could  not  indeed  derive  much  pleasure 
from  the  society  of  Anne,  who,  when  in  good  humour,  was 
meekly  stupid,  and,  when  in  bad  humour,  was  sulkily  stupid. 
Yet  the  Queen,  whose  kindness  had  endeared  her  to  her  hum- 
blest attendants,  would  hardly  have  made  an  enemy  of  one 
whom  it  was  her  duty  and  her  interest  to  make  a  friend,  had 
not  an  interest  strangely  potent  and  strangely  malignant  been 
incessantly  at  work  to  divide  the  Royal  House  against  itself. 
The  fondness  of  the  Princess  for  Lady  Marlborough  was  such 
as,  in  a  superstitious  age,  would  have  been  ascribed  to  some  talis- 
man or  potion.  Not  only  had  the  friends,  in  their  confidential 
intercourse  with  each  other,  dropped  all  ceremony  and  all  titles, 
uud  become  plain  Mrs.  Morley  and  plain  Mrs.  Freeinaii ;  but 

*  Buniet,  ii.  43. 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  501 

even  Prince  George,  who  cared  as  much  for  the  dignity  of  his 
birth  as  he  was  capable  of  caring  for  anything  but  claret  and 
calvered  salmon,  submitted  to  be  Mr.  Morley.  The  countess 
boasted  that  she  had  selected  the  name  of  Freeman  because  it 
was  peculiarly  suited  to  the  frankness  and  boldness  of  her 
character  ;  and,  to  do  her  justice,  it  was  not  by  the  ordinary  arts 
of  courtiers  that  she  established  and  long  maintained  her  des- 
potic empire  over  the  feeblest  of  minds.  She  had  little  of  that 
tact  which  is  the  characteristic  talent  of  her  sex :  she  was  far  too 
violent  to  flatter  or  to  dissemble  :  but,  by  a  rare  chance,  she  had 
fallen  in  with  a  nature  on  which  dictation  and  contradiction  acted 
as  philtres.  In  this  grotesque  friendship  all  the  loyalty,  the 
patience,  the  self  devotion,  was  on  the  side  of  the  mistress.  The 
whims,  the  haughty  airs,  the  fits  of  ill  temper,  were  on  the  side 
of  the  waiting  woman. 

Nothing  is  more  curious  than  the  relation  in  which  the  two 
ladies  stood  to  Mr.  Freeman,  as  they  called  Marlborough.  In 
foreign  countries  people  knew  in  general  that  Anne  was  gov- 
erned by  the  Churchills.  They  knew  also  that  the  man  who 
appeared  to  enjoy  so  large  a  share  of  her  favour  was  not  only  a 
great  soldier  and  politician,  but  also  one  of  the  finest  gentlemen 
of  his  time,  that  his  face  and  figure  were  eminently  handsome, 
his  tt  mper  at  once  bland  and  resolute,  his  manners  at  once 
engaging  and  noble.  Nothing  could  be  more  natural  than  that 
graces  and  accomplishments  like  his  should  win  a  female  heart. 
On  the  Continent  therefore  many  persons  imagined  that  he  was 
Anne's  favoured  lover  ;  and  he  was  so  described  in  contemporary 
French  libels  which  have  long  been  forgotten.  In  England  this 
calumny  never  gained  credit  even  with  the  vulgar,  and  is 
nowhere  to  be  found  even  in  the  most  ribald  doggrel  that  was 
sung  about  our  streets.  In  truth  the  Princess  seems  never  to 
have  been  guilty  of  a  thought  inconsistent  with  her  conjugal 
vows.  To  her,  Marlborough,  with  all  his  genius  and  his  valour, 
his  beauty  and  his  grace,  was  nothing  but  the  husband  of  her 
friend.  Direct  power  over  Her  Royal  Highness  he  had  none. 
He  could  influence  her  only  by  the  instrumentality  of  his  wife  ; 
and  his  wife  was  no  passive  instrument.  Though  it  is  impossible 


502  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

to  discover,  in  anything  that  she  ever  did,  said,  or  wrote,  any 
indication  of  superior  understanding,  her  fierce  passions  and 
strong  will  enabled  her  often  to  rule  a  husband  who  was  born 
to  rule  gravo  senates  and  mighty  armies.  His  courage,  that 
courage  which  the  most  perilous  emergencies  of  war  only  made 
cooler  and  more  steady,  failed  him  when  he  had  to  encounter 
his  Sarah's  ready  tears  and  voluble  reproaches,  the  poutings  of 
her  lip  and  the  tossings  of  her  head.  History  exhibits  to  us  few 
spectacles  more  remarkable  than  that  of  a  great  and  wise  man, 
who,  when  he  had  contrived  vast  and  profound  schemes  of  policy, 
could  carry  them  into  effect  only  by  inducing  one  foolish  woman, 
who  was  often,  unmanageable,  to  manage  another  woman  who 
was  more  foolish  still. 

In  one  point  the  Earl  and  the  Countess  were  perfectly 
agreed.  They  were  equally  bent  on  getting  money ;  though, 
when  it  was  got,  he  loved  to  hoard  it,  and  she  was  not  unwil- 
ling to  spend  it.*  The  favour  of  the  Princess  they  both  regard- 
ed as  a  valuable  estate.  In  her  father's  reign  they  had  begun 
to  grow  rich  by  means  of  her  bounty.  She  was  naturally 
inclined  to  parsimony  ;  and  even  when  she  was  on  the  throne, 
her  equipages  and  tables  were  by  no  means  sumptuous.f  It 
might  have  been  thought,  therefore,  that,  while  she  was  a 
subject,  thirty  thousand  a  year,  with  a  residence  in  the  palace, 
would  have  been  more  than  sufficient  for  all  her  wants.  There 
were  probably  not  in  the  kingdom  two  noblemen  possessed  of 
such  an  income.  But  no  income  would  satisfy  the  greediness 
of  those  who  governed  her.  She  repeatedly  contracted  debts 
which  James  repeatedly  discharged,  not  without  expressing 
much  surprise  and  displeasure. 

The  Revolution  opened  to  the  Churchills  a  new  and  bound- 
less prospect  of  gain.  The  whole  conduct  of  their  mistress  at 
the  great  crisis  had  proved  that  she  had  no  will,  no  judgment, 

*  In  a  contemporary  lampoon  are  these  lines  : 
"  Oh,  happy  couple  !     Jn  their  life 
There  docs  appear  no  sign  of  strife  ; 
They  do  agree  (.0  in  the  main, 

To  sacrifice  their  souls  for  gain."— The  Fetmle  Nine,  1TOO. 

t  Swift  mentions  the  deficiency  of  hospitality  and  magnificence  in  her  house. 
hold.     Journal  to  Stella,  August  8,  1711. 


WILLIAM   AND    MAKY.  503 

no  conscience,  but  theirs.  To  them  she  had  sacrificed  affec- 
tions, prejudices,  habits,  interests.  In  obedience  to  them, 
she  had  joined  in  the  conspiracy  against  her  father :  she  had 
fled  from  Whitehall  in  the  depth  of  winter,  through  ice  and 
mire,  to  a  hackney  coach  :  she  had  taken  refuge  in  the  rebel 
camp  :  she  had  consented  to  yield  her  place  in  the  order  of 
succession  to  the  Prince  of  Orange.  They  saw  with  pleasure 
that  she,  over  whom  they  possessed  such  boundless  influence, 
possessed  no  common  influence  over  others.  Scarcely  had 
the  Revolution  been  accomplished  when  many  Tories,  dis- 
liking both  the  King  who  had  been  driven  out  and  the  King 
who  had  come  in,  and  doubting  whether  their  religion  had 
more  to  fear  from  Jesuits  or  from  Latitudinarians,  showed  a 
strong  disposition  to  rally  round  Anne.  Nature  had  made 
her  a  bigot.  Such  was  the  constitution  of  her  mind  that  to  the 
religion  of  her  nursery  she  could  not  but  adhere,  without  ex- 
amination and  without  doubt, till  she  was  laid  in  her  coffin.  In 
the  court  of  her  father  she  had  been  deaf  to  all  that  could  be 
urged  in  favour  of  transubstantiation  and  auricular  confession. 
In  the  court  of  her  brother  in  law  she  was  equally  deaf  to  all 
that  could  be  urged  in  favour  of  a  general  union  among  Pro- 
testants. This  slowness  and  obstinacy  made  her  important.  It 
was  a  great  thing  to  be  the  only  member  of  the  Royal  Family 
who  regarded  Papists  and  Presbyterians  with  impartial  aversion. 
While  a  large  party  was  disposed  to  make  her  an  idol,  she  was 
regarded  by  her  two  artful  servants  merely  as  a  puppet.  They 
knew  that  she  had  it  in  her  power  to  give  serious  annoyance  to 
the  government ;  and  they  determined  to  use  this  power  in 
order  to  extort  money,  nominally  for  her,  but  really  for  them- 
selves. While  Marlborough  was  commanding  the  English 
forces  in  the  Low  Countries,  the  execution  of  the  plan  was 
necessarily  left  to  his  wife ;  and  she  acted,  not  as  he  would 
doubtless  have  acted,  with  prudence  and  temper,  but,  as  is  plain 
even  from  her  own  narrative,  with  odious  violence  and  insolence. 
Indeed  she  had  passions  to  gratify  from  which  he  was  altogether 
free.  He,  though  one  of  the  most  covetous  was  one  of  the  least 
acrimonious  of  mankind  :  but  malignity  was  in  her  a  stronger 


504  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

passion  than  avarice.  She  hated  easily:  she  hated  heartily  :  and 
she  hated  implacably.  Among  the  objects  of  her  hatred  were 
all  who  were  related  to  her  mistress  either  on  the  paternal  or  on 
the  maternal  side.  No  person  who  had  a  natural  interest  in  the 
Princess  could  observe  without  uneasiness  the  strange  infatua- 
tion which  made  her  the  slave  of  an  imperious  and  reckless 
termagant.  This  the  Countess  well  knew.  In  her  view  the 
Royal  Family  and  the  family  of  Hyde,  however  they  might  differ 
as  to  other  matters,  were  leagued  against  her  ;  and  she  detested 
them  all,  James  and  James's  Queen,  William  and  Mary,  Claren- 
don and  Rochester.  Now  was  the  time  to  wreak  the  accumula- 
ted spite  of  years.  It  was  not  enough  to  obtain  a  great,  a 
regal,  revenue  for  Anne.  That  revenue  must  be  obtained  by 
means  which  would  wound  and  humble  those  whom  the  favourite 
abhorred.  It  must  not  be  asked,  it  must  not  be  accepted,  as  a 
mark  of  fraternal  kindness,  but  demanded  in  hostile  tones,  and 
wrung  by  force  from  reluctant  hands.  No  application  \va? 
made  to  the  King  and  Queen.  But  they  learned  with  astonish- 
ment that  Lady  Marlborough  was  indefatigable  in  canvassing 
the  Tory  members  of  Parliament,  that  a  Princess's  party  was 
forming  that  the  House  of  Commons  would  be  moved  to  settle 

O7 

on  Her  Royal  Highness  a  vast  income  independent  of  the 
Crown.  Mary  asked  her  sister  what  these  proceedings  meant. 
'•  I  hear,"  said  Anne,  "  that  my  friends  have  a  mind  to  make 
me  some  settlement."  It  is  said,  that  the  Queen,  greatly  hurt 
by  an  expression  which  seemed  to  imply  that  she  and  her  hus- 
band were  not  among  her  sister's  friends,  replied  with  un- 
wonted sharpness,  "  Of  what  friends  do  you  speak  ?  What 
friends  have  you  except  the  King  and  me  ?  "  *  The  subject 
was  never  again  mentioned  between  the  sisters.  Mary  was 
probably  sensible  that  she  had  made  a  mistake,  in  addressing 
herself  to  one  who  was  merely  a  passive  instrument  in  the  hands 
of  others.  An  attempt  was  made  to  open  a  negotiation  with 
the  Countess.  After  some  inferior  agents  had  expostulated 

*  Duchess  of  Marlborough's  Vindication.  But  the  Duchess  was  so  abandoned 
a  liar  that  it  is  impossible  to  believe  a  word  that  she  says,  except  when  she  ac- 
cuses herself. 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  505 

with  her  in  vain,  Shrewsbury  waited  on  her.  It  might  have 
been  expected  that  his  intervention  would  have  been  successful : 
for,  if  the  scandalous  chronicle  of  those  times  could  be  trusted, 
lie  had  stood  high,  too  high,  in  her  favour.*  He  was  authorised 
by  the  King  to  promise  that,  if  the  Princess  would  desist  from 
soliciting  the  members  of  the  House  of  Commons  to  support 
her  cause,  the  income  of  Her  Royal  Highness  should  be  increased 
from  thirty  thousand  pounds  to  fifty  thousand.  The  Countess 
flatly  rejected  this  offer.  The  King's  word,  she  had  the  insolence 
to  hint,  was  not  a  sufficient  security.  "  I  am  .confident,"  said 
Shrewsbury,  "  that  His  Majesty  will  strictly  fulfil  his  engage- 
ments. If  he  breaks  them  I  will  not  serve  him  an  hour  longer." 
"  That  may  be  very  honourable  in  you,"  answered  the  pertina- 
cious vixen :  "  but  it  will  be  very  poor  comfort  to  the  Princess." 
Shrewsbury  after  vainly  attempting  to  move  the  servant,  was 
at  length  admitted  to  an  audience  of  the  mistress.  Anne,  in 
language  doubtless  dictated  by  her  friend  Sarah,  told  him  that 
the  business  had  gone  too  far  to  be  stopped,  and  must  be  left  to 
the  decision  of  the  Commons. f 

The  truth  was  that  the  Princess's  prompters  hoped  to  obtain 
from  Parliament  a  much  larger  sum  than  was  offered  by  the 
•King.  Nothing  less  than  seventy  thousand  a  year  would'con- 
tent  them.  But  their  cupidity  overreached  itself..  The  House 
of  Commons  showed  a  great  disposition  to  gratify  Her  Royal 
Highness.  But,  when  at  length  her  too  eager  adherents  ven- 
tured to  name  the  sum  which  they  wished  to  grant,  the  murmurs 
were  loud.  Seventy  thousand  a  year  at  a  time  when  the  nece?- 
sary  expenses  of  the  State  were  daily  increasing,  when  the 
receipt  of  the  customs  was  daily  diminishing,  when  trade  was 
low,  when  every  gentleman,  every  merchant,  was  retrenching 
something  from  the  charge  of  his  table  and  his  cellar !  The 
general  opinion  was  that  th#  sum  which  the  King  was  under- 

*  See  the  Female  Xine. 

t  The  Duchess  of  Marlborough's  Vindication.  "With  that  habitual  inaccuracy 
•which,  even  when  she  has-no  motive  for  lying,  makes  it  necessary  to  read  every 
word  written  or  dictated  by  her  with  suspicion,  she  creates  Shrewsbury  a  Dukei 
and  represents  herself  as  calling  him  "  Your  Grace."  He  was  not  made  a  Duke 
till  1GM. 


50G  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

stood  to  be  willing  to  give  would  be  amply  sufficient.*  At  last 
something  was  conceded  oa  both  sides.  The  Princess  was 
forced  to  content  herself  with  fifty  thousand  a  year ;  and 
William  agreed  that  this  sum  should  be  settled  on  her  by  Act 
of  Parliament.  She  rewarded  the  services  of  Lady  Marlborough 
with  a  pension  of  a  thousand  a  year ;  t  but  this  was  in  all 
probability  a  very  small  part  of  what  the  Churchills  gained  by 
the  arrangement. 

After  these  transactions  the  two  royal  sisters  continued  dur- 
ing many  months  to  live  on  terms  of  civility  and  even  of  ap- 
parent friendship.  But  Mary,  though  she  seems  to  have  borne 
no  malice  to  Anne,  undoubtedly  felt  against  Lady  Marlborough 
as  much  resentment  as  a  very  gentle  heart  is  capable  of  feeling. 
Marlborough  had  been  out  of  England  during  a  great  part  of 
the  time  which  his  wife  had  spent  in  canvassing  among  the 
Tories,  and,  though  he  had  undoubtedly  acted  in  concert  with 
her,  had  acted,  as  usual,  with  temper  and  decorum.  He  there- 
fore continued  to  receive  from  William  many  marks  of  favour 
which  were  unaccompanied  by  any  indication  of  displeasure. 

In  the  debate.*  on  the  settling  of  the  revenue,  the  distinction 
between  Whigs  and  Tories  does  not  appear  to  have  been  very 
clearly  marked.  In  truth,  if  there  was  anything  about  which 
the  two  parties  were  agreed,  it  was  the  expediency  of  granting 
the  customs  to  the  Crown  for  a  time  not  exceeding  four  years. 
But  there  were  other  questions  which  called  forth  the  old  animosi- 
ty in  all  its  strength.  The  Whigs  were  now  a  minority,  but  a 
minority  formidable  in  numbers,  and  more  formidable  in  ability. 
They  carried  on  the  parliamentary  war,  not  less  acrimoniously 
than  when  they  were  a  majority,  but  somewhat  more  artfully. 
They  brought  forward  several  motions,  such  as  no  High  Church- 
man could  well  support,  yet  such  as  no  servant  of  William 
and  Mary  could  well  oppose.  The  Tory  who  voted  for  those 
motions  would  run  a  great  risk  of  being  pointed  at  as  a  turn- 
coat by  the  sturdy  Cavaliers  of  his  country.  The  Tory  who 


*  Commons*  Joumals,  December  17  and  18,  1089. 
•*  Vindication  of  the  Duchess  of  Marlborough. 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  507 

voted  against  those   motions  would  run  a  great  risk  of  being 
frowned  upon  at  Kensington. 

It  was  apparently  in  pursuance  of  this  policy  that  the  Whigs 
laid  on  the  table  of  the  House  of  Lords  a  bill  declaring  all  the 
laws  passed  by  the  Parliament  to  be  valid  laws.  No  sooner 
had  this  bill  been  read  than  the  controversy  of  the  preceding 
spring  was  renewed.  The  Whigs  were  joined  on  this  occasion 
by  almost  all  those  noblemen  who  were  connected  with  the 
government.  The  rigid  Tories,  with  Nottingham  at  their 
head  professed  themselves  willing  to  enact  that  every 
statute  passed  in  1G89  should  have  the  same  force  that  it 
would  have  had  if  it  had  been  passed  by  a  parliament  convoked 
in  a  regular  manner :  but  nothing  would  induce  them  to  ac- 
knowledge that  an  assembly  of  lords  and  gentlemen,  who  had 
come  together  without  authority  from  the  Great  Seul,  was  con- 
stitutionally a  Parliament.  Few  questions  seem  to  have  ex- 
cited stronger  passions  than  the  question,  practically  altogether 
unimportant,  whether  the  bill  should  or  should  not  be  declara- 
tory. Nottingham,  always  upright  and  honourable,  but  a  bigot 
and  a  formalist,  was  on  this  subject  singularly  obstinate  and  un- 
reasonable. In  one  debate  he  lost  his  temper,  forgot  the  de- 
corum which  in  general  he  strictly  observed,and  narrowly  escaped 
being  committed  to  the  custody  of  the  Black  Rod.*  After  much 
wrangling,  the  Whigs  carried  their  point  by  a  majority  of 
seven. f  Many  peers  signed  a  strong  protest  written  by  Not- 
tingham. In  this  protest  the  bill,  which  was  indeed  open  to 
verbal  criticism,  was  contemptuously  described  as  being  neither 
good  English  nor  good  sense.  The  majority  passed  a  resolu- 
tion that  the  protest  should  be  expunged  ;  and  against  this  reso- 
lution Nottingham  and  his  followers  again  protested. $  The 
King  was  displeased  by  the  pertinacity  of  his  Secretary  of 
Stute ;  so  much  displeased  indeed  that  Nottingham  declared 
his  intention  of  resigning  the  Seals  :  but  the  dispute  was  soon 
accommodated.  Wil.i.tm  was  too  wise  not  to  know  the  value 

*  Van  Citters,  April  8-18, 1000. 

t  Van  Citters,  April  8-18  ;  LuttrelPs  Diary. 

1  Lords'  Journals,  April  8  and  10, 1630  ;  Burnet,  li.  41. 


508  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

of  an  honest  man  in  a  dishonest  age.  The  very  scrupulosity 
which  made  Nottingham  a  mutineer  was  a  security  that  he 
would  never  be  a  traitor.* 

The  Bill  went  down  to  the  Lower  House  :  and  it  was  fully 
expected  that  the  contest  there  would  be  long  and  fierce :  but 
a  single  speech  settled  the  question.  Somers,  with  a  force  and 
eloquence  which  surprised  even  an  audience  accustomed  to  hear 
him  with  pleasure,  exposed  the  absurdity  of  the  doctrine  held 
by  the  High  Tories.  "  If  the  Convention," — it  was  thus  that 
he  argued, — "  was  not  a  Parliament,  how  can  we  be  a  Parlia- 
ment? An  Act  of  Elizabeth  provides  that  no  person  shall  sit 
or  vote  in  this  House  till  he  has  taken  the  old  oath  of  supremacy. 
Not  one  of  us  has  taken  that  oath.  Instead  of  it,  we  have  all 
taken  the  new  oath  of  supremacy  which  the  late  Parliament 
substituted  for  the  old  oath.  It  is  therefore  a  contradiction  to 
say  that  the  Acts  of  the  late  Parliament  are  not  now  valid,  and 
yet  to  ask  us  to  enact  that  they  shall  henceforth  be  valid.  For 
either  they  already  are  so,  or  we  never  can  make  them  so." 
This  reasoning,  which  was  in  truth  as  unanswerable  as  that  of 
Euclid,  brought  the  debate  to  a  speedy  close.  The  bill  passed 
the  Commons  within  forty-eight  hours  after  it  had  been  read 
the  first  time.f 

This  was  the  only  victory  won  by  the  Whigs  during  the 
whole  session.  They  complained  loudly  in  the  Lower  House 
of  the  change  which  had  been  made  in  the  military  government 
of  the  city  of  London.  The  Tories,  conscious  of  their  strength, 
and  heated  by  resentment,  not  only  refused  to  censure  what  had 
been  done,  but  determined  to  express  publicly  and  formally  their 
gratitude  to  the  King  for  having  brought  in  so  many  churchmen 
and  turned  out  so  many  schismatics.  An  address  of  thanks  was 
moved  by  Clarges,  member  for  Westminster,  who  was  known 
to  be  attached  to  Caermarthen.  "  The  alterations  which  have 
been  made  in  the  City,"  said  Clarges,  "  show  that  His  Majesty 
has  a  tender  care  of  us.  I  hope  that  he  will  make  similar 

»  Van  Citters,  ^^L^>  1090. 
May5, 

t  Commons'  Journals,  April  8  and  9,  1690;  Grey's  Debates;  Burnet,  ii.  42. 
Van  Cillers,  writing  on  the  8th,  mentions  that  a  great  struggle  in  the  Lower 
House  was  expected. 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  509 

alterations  in  every  county  of  the  realm."  The  minority  strug- 
gled hard.  "  "Will  you  thank  the  King,"  they  said,  "  for  putting 
the  sword  into  the  hands  of  his  most  dangerous  enemies  ?  Some 
of  those  whom  he  has  been  advised  to  entrust  with  military 
command  have  not  yet  been  able  to  bring  themselves  to  take 
the  oath  of  allegiance  to  him.  Others  were  well  known,  in  the 
evil  days,  as  stanch  jurymen,  who  were  sure  to  find  an  Exclu- 
r.ionist  guilty  on  any  evidence  or  no  evidence."  Nor  did  the 
Whig  orators  refrain  from  using  those  topics  on  which  all  fac- 
tions are  eloquent  in  the  hour  of  distress,  and  which  alf  factions 
are  but  too  ready  to  treat  lightly  in  the  hour  of  prosperity.  - 
"  Let  us  not,"  they  said,  "  pass  a  vote  which  conveys  a  reflec- 
tion on  a  large  body  of  our  countrymen,  good  subjects,  good 
Protestants.  The  King  ought  to  be  the  head  of  his  whole  peo- 
ple. Let  us  not  make  him  the  head  of  a  party."  This  was 
excellent  doctrine :  but  it  scarcely  became  the  lips  of  men  who, 
a  few  weeks  before,  had  opposed  the  Indemnity  Bill  and 
voted  for  the  Sacheverell  clause.  The  address  was  carried  by  a 
hundred  and  eighty-five  votes  to  a  hundred  and  thirty-six.* 

As  soon  as  the  numbers  had  been  announced,  the  minority, 
smarting  from  their  defeat,  brought  forward  a  motion  which 
caused  no  little  embarrassment  to  the  Tory  placemen.  The  oath 
of  allegiance,  the  Whigs  said,  was  drawn  in  terms  far  too  lax. 
It  might  exclude  from  public  employment  a  few  honest  Jacobites 
who  were  generally  too  dull  to  be  mischievous  :  but  it  was  alto- 
gether inefficient  as  a  means  of  binding  the  supple  and  slippery 
consciences  of  cunning  priests,  who,  while  affecting  to  hold  the 
Jesuits  in  abhorrence,  were  proficients  in  that  immoral  casuistry 
which  was  the  worst  part  of  Jesuitism.  Some  grave  divines, 
had  openly  said,  others  hud  even  dared  to  write,  that  they  had 
sworn  fealty  to  William  in  a  sense  altogether  different  from  that 
in  which  they  had  sworn  fealty  to  James.  To  James  they  had 
plighted  the  entire  faith  which  a  loyal  subject  owes  to  a  rightful 
sovereign  :  but,  when  they  promised  to  bear  true  allegiance  to 
William,  they  meant  only  that  they  would  not,  whilst  he  was 
able  to  hang  them  for  rebelling  or  conspiring  against  him,  run 

*  Commons'  Journals,  April  24, 1690 ;  Grey's  Debates. 


510  HISTOUY    OF    ENGLAND. 

any  risk  of  being  hanged.  None  could  wonder  that  the  pre- 
cepts and  example  of  the  malecontent  clergy  should  have  cor- 
rupted the  malecontent  laity.  When  Prebendaries  and  Rectors 
were  not  ashamed  to  avow  that  they  had  equivocated  in  the  very 
act  of  kissing  the  Gospels,  it  was  hardly  to  be  expected  that  at- 
torneys and  taxgatherers  would  be  more  scrupulous.  The  conse- 
quence was  that  every  department  swarmed  with  traitors  ;  that 
men  who  ate  the  King's  bread,  men  who  were  entrusted  with 
the  duty  of  collecting  and  disbursing  his  revenues,  of  victual- 
ling his  ships,  of  clothing  his  soldiers,  of  making  his  artillery 
ready  for  the  field,  were  in  the  habit  of  calling  him  an  usurper, 
and  of  drinking  to  his  speedy  downfall.  Could  any  government 
be  safe  which  was  hated  and  betrayed  by  its  own  servants? 
And  was  not  the  English  government  exposed  to  dangers  which, 
even  if  all  its  servants  were  true,  might  well  excite  serious  ap- 
prehensions ?  A  disputed  succession,  war  with  France,  war  in 
Scotland,  war  in  Ireland,  was  not  all  this  enough  without 
treachery  in  every  arsenal  and  in  every  custom  house  ?  There 
must  be  an  oath  drawn  in  language  too  precise  to  be  explained 
away,  in  language  which  no  Jacobite  could  repeat  without  the 
consciousness  that  he  was  perjuring  himself.  Though  the  zeal- 
ots of  indefeasible  hereditary  right  had  in  general  no  objection 
to  swear  allegiance  to  William,  they  would  probably  not  choose 
to  abjure  James.  On  such  grounds  as  these,  an  Abjuration  Bill 
of  extreme  severity  was  brought  into  the  House  of  Commons. 
It  was  proposed  to  enact  that  every  person  who  held  any  office, 
civil,  military,  or  spiritual,  should,  on  pain  of  deprivation,  sol- 
emnly abjure  the  exiled  King ;  that  the  oath  of  abjuration 
might  be  tendered  by  any  justice  of  the  peace  to  any  subject  of 
Their  Majesties  ;  and  that,  if  it  were  refused,  the  recusant 
should  be  sent  to  prison,  and  should  lie  there  as  long  as  he  con- 
tinued obstinate. 

The  severity  of  this  last  provision  was  generally  and  most 
justly  blamed.  To  turn  every  ignorant  meddling  magistrate  into 
a  state  inquisitor,  to  insist  that  a  plain  man,  who  lived  peac  ea My, 
who  obeyed  the  laws,  who  paid  his  taxes,  who  had  never  held 
and  who  did  not  expect  ever  to  hold  any  office,  and  who  had 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  511 

never  troubled  his  head  about  problems  of  political  philosophy, 
should  declare,  under  the  sanction  of  au  oath,  a  decided  opinion  on 
a  point  about  which  the  most  learned  doctors  of  the  age  had 
written  whole  libraries  of  controversial  books,  and  to  send  him 
to  rot  iu  a  gaol  if  he  could  not  bring  himself  to  swear,  would 
surely  have  been  the  height  of  tyranny.  The  clause,  which  re- 
quired public  functionaries,  on  pain  of  deprivation,  to  abjure  the 
deposed  King,  was  not  open  to  the  same  objection.  Yet  even 
against  this  clause  some  weighty  arguments  were  urged.  A  man, 
it  was  said,  who  has  an  honest  heart  and  a  sound  understanding, 
is  sufficiently  bound  by  the  present  oath.  Every  such  man 
when  he  swears  to  be  faithful  and  to  bear  true  allegiance  to 
King  William,  does,  by  necessary  implication,  abjure  King  James. 
There  may  doubtless  be  among  the  servants  of  the  Sta.£,  and 
even  among  the  ministers  of  the  Church,  some  pers«^w  who 
have  no  sense  of  honour  or  religion,  and  who  are  ready  •«*  fore- 
swear themselves  for  lucre.  There  may  be  others  who  h-svc  con- 
tracted the  pernicious  habit  of  quibbling  away  the  mqsr,  bPcred 
obligations,  and  who  have  convinced  themselves  that  thev  can  in- 
nocently make,  with  a  mental  reservation,  a  promise  which  it 
would  be  sinful  to  make  without  such  a  reservation.  Against 
these  two  classes  of  Jacobites  it  is  true  that  the  present  test  af- 
fords no  s-'curity.  But  will  the  new  test,  will  any  test,  be  mor« 
efficacious  ?  Will  a  person  who  has  no  conscience,  or  a  person 
whose  conscience  can  be  set  at  rest  by  immoral  sophistry,  hesi- 
tate to  repeat  any  phrase  you  can  dictate  ?  The  former  will  kiss 
the  book  without  any  scruple  at  all.  The  scruples  of  the  latter 
will  be  very  easily  removed.  He  now  swears  allegiance  to  one 
King  with  a  mental  reservation.  He  will  then  abjure  the  other 
*King  with  a  mental  reservation.  Do  not  flatter  yourselves  that 
the  ingenuity  of  lawgivers  will  ever  do  vise  an  oath  which  the  in- 
genuity of  casuists  will  not  evade.  What  indeed  is  the  value 
of  any  oath  in  such  a  matter  ?  Among  the  many  lessons  which 
the  troubles  of  the  last  generation  have  left  us  none  is  more 
plain  than  this,  that  no  form  of  words,  however  precise,  no  im- 
precation, however  awful,  ever  saved,  or  ever  will  save,  a  gov- 
ernment from  destruction.  Was  not  the  Solemn  League  and 


512  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Covenant  burned  by  the  common  hangman  amidst  the  huzzas  of 
tens  of  thousands  who  had  themselves  subscribed  it  ?  Among 
the  statesmen  and  warriors  who  bore  the  chief  part  in  restoring 
Charles  the  Second,  how  many  were  there  who  had  not  repeat- 
edly abjured  him  ?  Nay,  is  it  not  well  known  that  some  of  thoso 
persons  boastfully  declared  that,  if  they  had  not  abjured  him, 
they  never  could  have  restored  him  ? 

The  debates  were  sharp  ;  and  the  issue  during  a  short  time 
seemed  doubtful :  for  some  of  the  Tories  who  were  in  office 
were  unwilling  to  give  a  vote  which  might  be  thought  to  indi- 
cate that  they  were  lukewarm  in  the  cause  of  the  King  whom 
'they  served,  William,  however,  took  care  to  let  it  be  under- 
stood that  he  had  no  wish  to  impose  a  new  test  on  his  subjects. 
A  few  words  from  him  decided  the  event  of  the  conflict.  The 
bill  was  rejected  thirty-six  hours  after  it  had  been  brought  in 
by  a  hundred  and  ninety-two  votes  to  a  hundred  and  sixty-five.* 

Even  after  this  defeat  the  "Whigs  pertinaciously  returned  to 
the  attack.  Having  failed  in  one  House  they  renewed  the  bat- 
tle in  the  other.  Five  days  after  the  Abjuration  Bill  had  been 
thrown  out  in  the  Commons,  another  Abjuration  Bill,  somewhat 
milder,  but  still  very  severe,  was  laid  on  the  table  of  the  Lords.f 
What  was  now  proposed  was  that  no  person  should  sit  in  either 
House  of  Parliament  or  hold  any  office,  civil,  military,  or  judi- 
cial, without  making  a  declaration  that  he  would  stand  by 
William  and  Mary  against  James  and  James's  adherents.  Every 
male  in  the  kingdom  who  had  attained  the  age  of  sixteen  was  to 
make  the  same  declaration  before  a  certain  day.  If  he  failed  to 
do  so  he  was  to  pay  double  taxes  and  to  be  incapable  of  exercis- 
ing the  elective  franchise. 

*  Commons'  Journals,  April  24,  25,  and  20  ;  Grey's  Debates  ;  Narcissus  Lut- 
trcll's  Diary.  Narcissus  is  unusually  angry.  He  calls  the  bill  "  a  perfect  trick 
of  the  fanatics  to  turn  out  the  Bishops  and  most  of  the  Church  of  England 
Clergy."  In  a  Whig  pasquinade  entitled  "A  Speech  intended  to  have  been 
e;)okon  on  the  Triennial  Bill,  on  Jan.  28,"  1G92-3,  the  King  is  said  to  have  "  brow- 
beaten the  Abjuration  Bill." 

t  Lords'  Journals,  May  1,  1600.  This  Bill  is  among  the  Archives  of  the  House 
of  Lords.  Burnet  confounds  it  with  the  bill  which  tha  Commons  had  rejected  in 
the  preceding  weak.  Ralph,  who  saw  that  Burnet  had  committed  a  blunder, 
but  did  not  Bee  what  the  blunder  was,  has,  in  trying  to  correct  i  ,  added  several 
blunders  of  his  own  ;  and  the  Oxford  editor  of  Buruet  has  been,  misled  by  Ralph. 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  513 

On  the  day  fixed  for  the  second  reading,  the  King  came 
down  to  the  House  of  Peers.  He  gave'  his  assent  in  form  to 
several  laws,  unrobed,  took  his  seat  on  a  chair  of  state  winch 
had  been  placed  for  him,  and  listened  with  much  interest  to  the 
debate.  To  the  general  surprise,  two  noblemen  who  had  been 
eminently  zealous  for  the  Revolution  spoke  against  the  proposed 
test.  Lord  Wharton,  a  Puritan  who  had  fought  for  the  Long 
Parliament,  said,  with  amusing  simplicity,  that  he  was  a  very 
old  man,  that  he  had  lived  through  troubled  times,  that  he  had 
taken  a  great  many  oaths  in  his  day,  and  that  he  was  afraid  that 
he  had  not  kept  them  all.  He  prayed  that  the  sin  might  not  be 
laid  to  his  charge  ;  and  he  declared  that  he  could  not  consent  to 
lay  any  more  snares  for  his  own  soul  and  for  the  souls  of  his 
neighbours.  The  Earl  of  Macclesfield,  the  captain  of  the  Eng- 
lish volunteers  who  had  accompanied  William  from  Helvoetsluys 
to  Torbay,  declared  that  he  was  much  in  the  same  case  with 
Lord  Wharton.  Marlborough  supported  the  bill.  He  wondered, 
he  said,  that  it  should  be  opposed  by  Macclesfield,  who  had 
borne  so  prominent  a  part  in  the  Revolution.  Macclesfield, 
irritated  by  the  charge  of  inconsistency,  retorted  with  terrible 
severity  :  "  The  noble  Earl,"  he  said,  "  exaggerates  the  share 
which  I  had  in  the  deliverance  of  our  country.  I  was  ready,  in- 
deed, and  always  shall  be  ready,  to  venture  my  life  in  defence  of 
her  laws  and  liberties.  But  there  are  lengths  to  which,  even  for 
the  sake  of  her  laws  and  liberties,  I  could  never  go.  I  only  rebelled 
against  a  bad  King :  there  were  those  who  did  much  more." 
Marlborough,  though  not  easily  discomposed,  could  not  but  feel 
the  edge  of  this  sarcasm  :  William  looked  displeased ;  and  the 
aspect  of  the  whole  House  was  troubled  and  gloomy.  It  was 
resolved  by  fifty-one  votes  to  forty  that  the  bill  should  be  com- 
mitted ;  and  it  was  committed,  but  never  reported.  After  many 
hard  struggles  between  the  Whigs  headed  \>y  Shrewsbury  and 
the  Tories  headed  by  Caermarthen,  it  was  so  much  mutilated 
that  it  retained  little  more  than  its  name,  and  did  not  seem 
to  those  who  had  introduced  it  to  be  worth  any  further  contest.* 

*  Lords'  Journals,  May  2  and  3,  1690  ;  Van  Citters,  May  2 ;  Narcissus  Lut- 
trell's  Diary  ;  Burnet,  ii.  44  ;  and  Lord  Dartmouth's  note.  The  changes  made  by 
the  Committee  may  be  seen  on  the  bill  in  the  Archives  of  the  House  of  Lords. 

VOL.  III.— 33 


514  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

The  discomfiture  of  the  Whigs  was  completed  by  a  commu- 
nication from  the  King.  Caermarthen  appeared  in  the  House 
of  Lords  bearing  in  his  hand  a  parchment  signed  by  William. 
It  was  an  Act  of  Grace  for  political  offences. 

Between  an  Act  of  Grace  originating  with  the  Sovereign  and 
an  Act  of  Indemnity  originating  with  the  Estates  of  the  Realm 
there  are  some  remarkable  distinctions.  An  Act  of  Indemnity 
passes  through  all  the  stages  through  which  other  laws  pass,  and 
may,  during  its  progress,  be  amended  by  either  House.  An  Act 
of  Grace  is  received  with  peculiar  marks  of  respect,  is  read  only 
once  by  the  Lords  and  once  by  the  Commons,  and  must  be 
either  rejected  altogether  or  accepted  as  it  stands.*  William 
had  not  ventured  to  submit  such  an  Act  to  the  preceding  Par- 
liament. But  in  the  new  Parliament  he  was  certain  of  a 
majority.  The  minority  gave  no  trouble.  The  stubborn  spirit 
which  had,  during  two  sessions,  obstructed  the  progress  of  the 
Bill  of  Indemnity  had  been  at  length  broken  by  defeats  and 
humiliations.  Both  Houses  stood  up  uncovered  while  the  Act 
of  Grace  was  read,  and  gave  their  sanction  to  it  without  one  dis- 
sentient voice.  - 

There  would  not  have  been  this  unanimity  had  not  a  few- 
great  criminals  been  excluded  from  the  benefits  of  the  amnesty. 
Foremost  among  them  stood  the  surviving  members  of  the  Hisrh 

w  O  O 

Court  of  Justice  which  had  sate  on  Charles  the  First.  With 
these  ancient  men  were  joined  the  two  nameless  executioners 
who  had  done  their  office,  with  masked  faces,  on  the  scaffold 
before  the  Banqueting  House.  None  knew  who  they  were,  or 
of  what  rank.  It  was  probable  that  they  had  been  long  dead. 
Yet  it  was  thought  necessary  to  declare  that,  if  even  now,  after 
the  lapse  of  forty-one  years,  they  should  be  discovered,  they  would 
still  be  liable  to  the  punishment  of  their  great  crime.  Perhaps 
it  would  hardly  have  been  thought  necessary  to  mention  these 
men,  if  the  animosities  of  the  preceding  generation  had  not  been 
rekindled  by  the  recent  appearance  of  Ludlow  in  England. 
About  thirty  of  the  agents  of  the  tyranny  of  James  were  left  to 

*  These  distinctions  wore  much  discussed  at  the  time.  VanCitters,  May  20-30, 
1600. 


"WILLIAM  AND   MART.  515 

the  law.  With  these  exceptions,  all  political  offences,  committed 
before  the  day  on  which  the  royal  signature  was  affixed  to  the 
Act,  were  covered  with  a  general  oblivion.*  Even  the  criminals 
who  were  by  name  excluded  had  little  to  fear.  Man/  of  them 
were  in  foreign  countries  ;  and  those  who  were  in  England  were 
well  assured  that,  unless  they  committed  some  new  fault,  they 
would  not  be  molested. 

The  Act  of  Grace  the  nation  owed  to  William  alone ;  and  it 
is  one  of  his  noblest  and  purest  titles  to  renown.  From  the 
commencement  of  the  civil  troubles  of  the  seventeenth  century 
down  to  the  Revolution,  every  victory  gained  by  either _party 
had  been  followed  by  a  sanguinary  proscription.  When  the 
Roundheads  triumphed  over  the  Cavaliers,  when  the  Cavaliers 
triumphed  over  the  Roundheads,  when  the  fable  of  the  Popish 
plot  gave  the  ascendency  to  the  Whigs,  when  the  detection  of 
the  Rye  House  Plot  transferred  the  ascendancy  to  the  Tories, 
blood,  and  more  blood,  and  still  more  blood,  had  flowed.  Every 
great  explosion  and  every  great  recoil  of  public  feeling  had  been 
accompanied  by  severities  which,  at  the  time,  the  predominant 
faction  loudly  applauded,  but  which  on  a  calm  review,  history 
and  posterity  have  condemned.  No  wise  and  humane  man  what- 
ever may  be  his  political  opinions,  now  mentions  without  repre- 
hension the  death  either  of  Laud  or  of  Vane,  either  of  Stafford 
or  of  Russ*ell.  Of  the  alternate  butcheries  the  last  and  the  worst 
is  that  which  is  inseparably  associated  with  the  names  of  James 
and  Jeffreys.  But  it  assuredly  would  not  have  been  the  last, 
perhaps  it  might  not  have  been  the  worst,  if  William  had  not 
had  the  virtue  and  the  firmness  resolutely  to  withstand  the  im- 
portunity of  his  most  zealous  adherents.  These  men  were  bent 
on  exacting  a  terrible  retribution  for  all  they  had  undergone  dur- 
ing seven  disastrous  years.  The  scaffold  of  Sidney,  the  gibbet  of 
Cornish,  the  stake  at  which  Elizabeth  Gaunt  had  perished  in 
the  flames  for  the  crime  of  harbouring  a  fugitive,  the  porches  of 
the  Somersetshire  churches  surmounted  by  the  skulls  and  quar- 
ters of  murdered  peasants,  the  holds  of  those  Jamaica  ships 
from  which  every  day  the  carcass  of  some  prisoner  dead  of 

*  Stat.  2  W.  &  M.  seas.  1,  c.  10. 


516  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

thirst  and  foul  air  had  been  flung  to  the  sharks,  all  these  things 
were  fresh  in  the  memory  of  the  party  which  the  Revolution 
had  made,  for  a  time,  dominant  in  the  State.  Some  chiefs  of 
that  party  had  redeemed  their  necks  by  paying  heavy  ransom. 
Others  had  languished  long  in  Newgate.  Others  had  starved 
and  shivered,  winter  after  winter,  in  the  garrets  of  Amsterdam. 
It  was  natural  that  in  the  day  of  their  power  and  prosperity 
they  should  wish  to  inflict  some  part  of  what  they  had  suffered. 
During  a  whole  year  they  pursued  their  scheme  of  revenge. 
They  succeeded  in  defeating  Indemnity  Bill  after  Indemnity 
Bill.  Nothing  stood  between  them  and  'their  victims,  but 
William's  immutable  resolution  that  the  glory  of  the  great  de- 
liverance which  he  had  wrought  should  not  be  sullied  by  cruelty. 
His  clemency  was  peculiar  to  himself.  It  was  not  the  clemency 
of  an  ostentatious  man,  or  of  a  sentimental  man,  or  of  an  easy 
tempered  man.  It  was  cold,  unconciliating,  inflexible.  It  pro- 
duced no  fine  stage  effects.  It  drew  on  him  the  savage  invec- 
tives of  those  whose  malevolent  passions  he  refused  to  satisfy. 
It  won  for  him  no  gratitude  from  those  who  owed  to  him  for- 
tune, liberty,  and  life.  While  the  violent  Whigs  railed  at  his 
lenity,  the  agents  of  the  fallen  tyranny,  as  soon  as  they  found 
themselves  safe,  instead  of  acknowledging  their  obligations  to 
him,  reproached  him  in  insulting  language  with  the  mercy 
which  he  had  extended  to  them.  His  Act  of  Grace, 'they  said, 
had  completely  refuted  his  Declaration.  Was  it  possible  to 
believe  that,  if  there  had  been  any  truth  in  the  charges  which  he 
had  brought  against  the  late  government,  he  would  have  grant- 
ed impunity  to  the  guilty  ?  It  was  now  acknowledged  by  him- 
self* under  his  own  hand,  that  the  stories  by  which  he  and  his 
friends  had  deluded  the  nation  and  driven  away  the  royal  family 
were  mere  calumnies  devised  to  serve  a  turn.  The  turn  had 
been  served ;  and  the  accusations  by  which  he  had  inflamed  the 
public  mind  to  madness  were  coolly  withdrawn.*  But  none  of 
these  things  moved  him.  He  had  done  well.  He  had  risked 
his  popularity  with  men  who  had  been  his  warmest  admirers,  in 

*  Boger  North  was  one  of  the  many  maleconteiits  who  were  never  tired  of 
harping  on  this  string. 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  517 

order  to  give  repose  and  security  to  men  by  whom  his  name 
was  never  mentioned  without  a  curse.  Nor  had  he  conferred  a 
less  benefit  on  those  whom  he  had  disappointed  of  their  revenge 
than  on  those  wham  he  had  protected.  If  he  had  saved  one 
faction  from  a  proscription,  he  had  saved  the  other  from  the 
reaction  which  such  a  proscription  would  inevitably  have  pro- 
duced. If  his  people  did  not  justly  appreciate  his  policy,  so 
much  the  worse  for  them.  He  had  discharged  his  duty  by  them. 
He  feared  no  obloquy  ;  and  he  wanted  no  thanks. 

On  the  twentieth  of  May  the  Act  of  Grace  was  passed. 
The  King  then  informed  the  Houses  that  his  visit  to  Ireland 
could  no  longer  be  delayed,  that  he  had  therefore  determined 
to  prorogue  them,  and  that,  unless  some  unexpected  emergency 
made  their  advice  and  assistance  necessary  to  him,  he  should 
not  call  them  again  from  their  homes  till  the  next  winter. 
"Then,"  he  said,  "I  hope,  by  the  blessing  of  God,  we  shall 
have  a  happy  meeting." 

The  Parliament  had  passed  an  Act  providing  that,  whenever 
he  should  go  out  of  England,  it  should  be  lawful  for  Mary  to 
administer  the  government  of  the  kingdom  in  his  name  and  her 
own.  It  was  added  that  he  should  nevertheless,  during  his 
absence,  retain  all  his  authority.  Some  objections  were  made 
to  this  arrangement.  Here,  it  was  said,  were  two  supreme 
powers  in  one  State.  A  public  functionary  might  receive  dia- 
metrically opposite  orders  from  the  King  and  the  Queen,  and 
might  not  know  which  to  obey.  The  objection  was,  beyond  all 
doubt,  speculatively  just ;  but  there  was  such  perfect  confidence 
and  affection  between  the  royal  pair  that  no  practical  inconve- 
nience was  to  be  apprehended.* 

As  far  as  Ireland  was  concerned,  the  prospects  of  "William 
were  much  more  cheering  than  they  had  been  a  few  months 
earlier.  The  activity  with  which  he  had  personally  urged  for- 
ward the  preparations  for  the  next  campaign  had  produced  an 
extraordinary  effect.  The  nerves  of  the  government  were  new 
strung.  In  every  department  of  the  military  administration 
the  influence  of  a  vigorous  mind  was  perceptible.  Abundant 

*  Stat.  2  W.  &  31.  sess.  1.  c.  6  ;   Grey's  Debates,  April  20,  May  1,  5,  6, 7,  1690. 


518  HISTORY   OP   ENGLAND. 

supplies  of  food,  clothing,  and  medicine,  very  different  in  qualir 
ty  from  those  which  Shales  had  furnished,  were  sent  across 
Saint  George's  Channel.  A  thousand  baggage  waggons  had 
been  made  or  collected  with  great  expedition  ;  and,  during 
some  weeks,  the  road  between  London  and  Chester  was  covered 
with  them.  Great  numbers  of  recruits  were  sent  to  fill  the 
chasms  which  pestilence  had  made  in  the  English  ranks.  Fresh 
regiments  from  Scotland,  Cheshire,  Lancashire,  and  Cumber- 
land had  landed  in  the  Bay  of  Belfast.  The  uniforms  and 
arms  of  the  new  comers  clearly  indicated  the  potent  influence 
of  the  master's  eye.  With  the  British  battalions  were  inter- 
spersed several  hardy  bands  of  German  and  Scandinavian  mer- 
cenaries. Before  the  end  of  May  the  English  force  in  Ulster 
amounted  to  thirty  thousand  fighting  men.  A  few  more  troops 
and  an  immense  quantity  of  military  stores  were  on  board  of  a 
fleet  which  lay  in  the  estuary  of  the  Dee,  and  which  was  ready 
to  weigh  anchor  as  soon  as  the  King  was  on  board.* 

James  ought  to  have  made  an  equally  good  use  of  the  time 
during  which  his  army  had  been  in  winter  quarters.  Strict  discip- 
line and  regular  drilling  might,  in  the  interval  between  November 
and  May,  have  turned  the  athletic  and  enthusiastic  peasants  who 
were  assembled  under  his  standard  into  good  soldiers.  But 
the  opportunity  was  lost.  The  Court  of  Dublin  was,  during 
that  season  of  inaction,  busied  with  dice  and  claret,  love  letters 
and  challenges.  The  aspect  of  the  capital  was  indeed  not  very- 
brilliant.  The  whole  number  of  coaches  which  could  be  mus- 
tered there,  those  of  the  King  and  of  the  French  legation  in- 
cluded did  not  amount  to  forty,  f  But  though  there  was  little 
splendour  there  was  much  dissoluteness.  Grave  Roman  Catho- 
lics shook  their  heads  and  said  that  the  Castle  did  not  look  like 
the  palace  of  a  King  who  gloried  in  being  the  champion  of  the 
Church.  |  The  military  administration  was  as  deplorable  as 

*  Story's  Impartial  History  ;  Narcissus  Luttrell's  Diary. 

t  Avaux,  Jan.  15-25, IC'JU. 

t  Macariae  Excidium.  This  most  curious  work  has  been  recently  edited  with 
great  care  and  diligence  by  Mr.  O'Calla^han.  I  owe  so  much  to  his  learning  and 
Industry  that  I  most  readily  excuse  the  national  partiality  which  sometimes,  I 
eauuot  but  think,  perverts  his  judgment.  When  1  quote  the  Hacarise  Excidium, 


WILLIAM  AND    MARY.  519 

ever.  The  cavalry  indeed  was,  by  the  exertions  of  some  gal- 
lant officers,  kept  in  a  high  state  of  efficiency.  But  a  regiment 
of  infantry  differed  in  nothing  but  name  from  a  large  gang  of 
Ranparees.  Indeed  a  gang  of  Rapparees  gave  less  annoyance 
to  peaceable  citizens,  and  more  annoyance  to  the  enemy,  than  a 
regiment  of  infantry.  Avaux  strongly  represented,  in  a  me- 
morial which  he  delivered  to  James,  the  abuses  which  made  the 
Irish  foot  a  curse  and  a  scandal  to  Ireland.  Whole  companies, 
said  the  ambassador,  quit  their  colours  on  the  line  of  march  and 
wander  to  right  and  left  pillaging  and  destroying :  the  soldier 
takes  no  care  of  his  arms  :  the  captain  never  troubles  himself  to 
ascertain  whether  the  arms  are  in  good  order  :  the  consequence 
is  that  one  man  in  every  three  has  lost  his  musket,  and  that 
another  man  in  every  three  has  a  musket  that  will  not  go  off. 
Avaux  adjured  the  King  to  prohibit  marauding,  to  give  orders 
that  the  troops  should  be  regularly  exercised,  and  to  punish 
every  officer  who  suffered  his  men  to  neglect  their  weapons  and 
accoutrements.  If  these  things  were  done,  His  Majesty  might 
hope  to  have,  in  the  approaching  spring,  an  army  with  which 
the  enemy  would  be  unable  to  contend.  This  was  good  advice  : 
but  James  was  so  far  from  taking  it  that  he  would  hardly  lis- 
ten to  it  with  patience.  Before  he  had  heard  eight  lines  read 
he  flew  into  a  passion  and  accused  the  ambassador  of  exaggera- 
tion. "  This  paper,  Sir,"  said  Avaux,  "  is  not  written  to  be 
published.  It  is  meant'solely  for  Your  Majesty's  information  ; 
and,  in  a  paper  meant  solely  for  Your  Majesty's  information, 
flattery  and  disguise  would  be  out  of  place :  but  I  will  not  per- 
sist in  reading  what  is  so  disagreeable."  "  Go  on,"  said  James 
very  angrily  ;  "  I  will  hear  the  whole."  He  gradually  became 
calmer,  took  the  memorial,  and  promised  to  adopt  some  of  the 
suggestions  which  it  contained.  But  his  promise  was  soon  for- 
gotten.* 

His  financial  administration  was  of  a  piece  with  his  military 
administration.  His  one  fiscal  resource  was  robbery,  direct  or 
indirect.  Every  Protestant  who  had  remained  in  any  part  of 

I  always  quote  the  Latin  text.    The  English  version  is,  I  am  convinced,  merely  a 
translation  from  the  Latin,  and  a  very  careless  and  imperfect  translation. 
*  Avaux,  Kov.  14-24,  1G89. 


520  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

the  three  southern  provinces  of  Ireland  was  robbed  directly,  by 
the  simple  process  of  taking  money  out  of  his  strong  box,  drink 
out  of  his  cellars,  fuel  from  his  turf  stack,  and  clothes  from  his 
wardrobe.  He  was  robbed  indirectly  by  a  new  issue  of  count- 
ers, smaller  in  size  and  baser  in  material  than  any  which  had 
yet  borne  the  image  and  superscription  of  James.  Even  brass 
had  begun  to  be  scarce  at  Dublin  ;  and  it  was  necessary  to  ask 
assistance  from  Lewis,  who  charitably  bestowed  on  his  ally  an 
old  cracked  piece  of  cannon  to  be  coined  into  crowns  and  shil- 
lings.* 

But  the  French  king  had  determined  to  send  over  succours 
of  a  very  different  kind.  He  proposed  to  take  into  his  own  ser- 
vice, and  to  form  by  the  best  discipline  then  known  in  the  world, 
four  Irish  regiments.  They  were  to  be  commanded  by  Macar- 
thy,  who  had  been  severely  wounded  and  taken  prisoner  at  New- 
ton Butler.  His  wounds  had  been  healed;  and  he  had  regained 
his  liberty  by  violating  his  parole.  This  disgraceful  breach  of 
faith  he  had  made  more  disgraceful  by  paltry  tricks  and  sophis- 
tical excuses  which  would  have  become  a  Jesuit  better  than  a 
gentleman  and  a  soldier.  Lewis  was  willing  that  the  Irish  reg- 
iments should  be  sent  to  him  in  rags  and  unarmed,  and  insisted 
only  that  the  men  should  be  stout,  and  that  the  officers  should 
not  be  bankrupt  traders  and  discarded  lacqueys,  but,  if  possible, 
men  of  good  family  who  had  seen  service.  In  return  for  these 
troops,  who  were  in  number  not  quite  four  thousand,  he  under- 
took to  send  to  Ireland  between  seven  and  eight  thousand  ex- 
cellent French  infantry,  who  were  likely  in  a  day  of  battle  to  be 
of  more  use  than  all  the  kernes  of  Leinster,  Munster,  and  Con- 
naught  together.! 

*  Louvois  writes  to  Avaux,    -^  ^-^1689-90 :  "  Comme  le  Roy  a  veu  par  vos  let- 

tres  que  le  Roy  d'Angleterra  craignoit  de  manquer  de  cuivre  pour  faire  de  la 
moimoye,  Sa  Majeste  a  donn6  onlre  que  1'on  mist  sur  le  bastiment  que  poriera 
cette  lettre  une  piece  de  canon  du  calibre  de  deux  qui  eat  eventee,  de  laquelle 
ceux  qui  travailleiit  &  la  moimoye  du  Roy  d'Angleterre  pourront  s'e  servir  pour 
coiitinuer  a  faire  de  la  moimoye." 

t  Louvois  to  Avaux,  Nov.  1-11,  1889  The  force  sent  by  Lewis  to  Ireland  ap- 
pears by  the  lists  at  the  French  War  Office  to  have  amounted1  to  seven  thousand 
two  hundred  and  ninety-one  men  of  all  ranks.  At  the  French  War  Office  is  a 
letter  from  Marshal  d'Estrees  who  saw  the  four  Irish  regiments  soon  after  they 
had  lauded  at  Brest.  He  describes  them  as  "  mal  chausses,  mal  vetus,  et  u'ayaiit 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  521 

One  great  error  he  committed.  The  army  which  he  was 
sending  to  assist  James,  though  small  indeed  when  compared 
with  the  army  of  Flanders  or  with  the  army  of  the  Rhine,  was 
destined  for  a  service  on  which  the  fate  of  Europe  might  de- 
pend, and  ought  therefore  to  have  heen  commanded  hy  a  gen- 
eral of  eminent  abilities.  There  was  no  want  of  such  generals 
in  the  French  service.  But  James  and  his  Queen  begged  hard 
for  Lauzun,  and  carried  this  point  against  the  strong  represen- 
tations of  Avaux,  against  the  advice  of  Louvois,  and  against  the 
judgment  of  Lewis  himself. 

When  Lauzun  went  to  the  cabinet  of  Louvois  to  receive  in- 
structions, the  wise  minister  held  language  which  showed  how 
little  confidence  he  felt  in  the  vain  and  eccentric  knight  errant. 
"  Do  not,  for  God's  sake,  suffer  yourself  to  be.  hurried  away  by 
your  desire  of  fighting.  Put  all  your  glory  in  tiring  the  Eng- 
lish out ;  and,  above  all  things,  maintain  strict  discipline."! 

Not  only  was  the  appointment  of  Lauzun  in  itself  a  bad 
appointment :  but,  in  order  that  one  man  might  fill  a  post  for 
which  he  was  unfit,  it  was  necessary  to  remove  two  men  from 
posts  for  which  they  were  eminently  fit.  Immoral  and  hard- 
hearted as  Rosen  and  Avaux  were,  Rosen  was  a  skilful  captain, 
and  Avaux  was  a  skilful  politician.  Though  it  is  not  probable 
that  they  would  have  been  able  to  avert  the  doom  of  Ireland,  it 
is  probable  that  they  might  have  been  able  to  protract  the  con- 
test ;  and  it  was  evidently  for  the  interest  of  France  that  the 
contest  should  be  protracted.  But  it  would  have  been  an  affront 
to  the  old  general  to  put  him  under  the  orders  of  Lauzun ;  and 
between  the  ambassador  and  Lauzun  there  was  such  an  enmity 
that  they  could  not  be  expected  to  act  cordially  together.  Both 
Rosen  and  Avaux,  therefore,  were,  with  many  soothing  assur- 
ances of  royal  approbation  and  favour,  recalled  to  France.  They 
sailed  from  Cork  early  in  the  spring  by  the  fleet  which  had  con- 
point  d'unifonne  dans  leurs  habits,  si  ce  n'est  qu'ilssont  tous  fort  mauv.iis."  A 
very  exact  account  of  Maearthy's  breach  of  parole  will  be  found  in  Mr.  O'Calla- 
ghan's  History  of  the  Irish  Brigades.  I  am  sorry  that  a  writer  to  whom  I  owe  so 
much  should  try  to  vindicate  conduct  which,  as  described  by  himself,  was  in  the 
highest  degree  dishonourable. 

t  Lauzuu  to  Louvois,  ?-*Z_!  and  June  16-26, 1690,  at  the  French  War  Office, 


522  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

veyed  Lauzun  thither.*  Lauzun  had  no  sooner  landed  than  he 
found  that,  though  he  had  been  long  expected,  nothing  had  been 
prepared  for  his  reception.  No  lodgings  had  been  provided  for 
his  men,  no  place  of  security  for  his  stores,  no  horses,  no  car- 
riages.f  His  troops  had  to  undergo  the  hardships  of  a  long 
march  through  a  desert  before  they  arrived  at  Dublin.  At 
Dublin,  indeed,  they  found  tolerable  accommodation.  They 
were  billeted  on  Protestants,  lived  at  free  quarters,  had  plenty 
of  bread,  and  threepence  a  day.  Lauzun  was  appointed  Com- 
mander in  Chief  of  the  Irish  army  and  took  up  his  residence  in 
the  Castle. $  His  salary  was  the  same  with  that  of  the  Lord 
Lieutenant,  eight  thousand  Jacobuses,  equivalent  to  ten  thous- 
and pounds  sterling,  a  year.  This  sum  James  offered  to  pay, 
not  in  the  brass  which  bore  his  own  effigy,  but  in  French  gold. 
But  Lauzun,  among  whose  faults  avarice  had  no  place,  refused 
to  fill  his  own  coffers  from  an. almost  empty  treasury.! 

On  him  and  on  the  Frenchmen  who  accompanied  him  the 
misery  of  the  Irish  people  and  the  imbecility  of  the  Irish  ad- 
ministration produced  an  effect  which  they  found  it  difficult  to 
describe.  Lauzun  wrote  to  Louvois  that  the  Court  and  the 
whole  kingdom  were  in  a  state  not  to  be  imagined  by  a  person 
who  had  always  lived  in  happier  countries.  It  was,  he  said,  a 
chaos,  such  as  he  had  read  of  in  the  book  of  Genesis.  The 
whole  business  of  all  the  public  functionaries  was  to  quarrel 
with  each  other,  and  to  plunder  the  government  and  the  people. 
After  he  had  been  about  a  month  at  the  Castle,  he  declared  that 
he  would  not  go  through  such  another  month  for  all  the  world. 
His  ablest  officers  confirmed  his  testimony. ||  One  of  them, 
indeed,  was  so  unjust  as  to  represent  the  people  of  Ireland,  not 
merely  as  ignorant  and  idle,  which  they  were,  but  as  hopelessly 
stupid  and  unfeeling,  which  they  assuredly  were  not.  The 

*  See  the  later  letters  of  Avaux. 

t  Avaux  to  Louvois,  March  14-24, 1C90  ;  Lauzun  to  Louvois,  ^^L?!' 

April  2. 

t  Story's  Impartial  History  ;  Lauzun  to  Louvois,  May  20-30,  IGiiO. 

§  Lauzun  to  Louvois,  ^J?si  1690. 
June  7, 

||  Lauzun  to  Louvois,  April  2-12,  May  10-20, 1690.  La  Hoguette,  who  held  the 
rank  of  Marechal  de  Cainp,  wrote  to  Louvois  to  the  same  effect  about  the  same 
time. 


WILLIAM   AND   MART.  523 

English  policy,  he  said,  had  so  completely  brutalised  them  that 
they  could  hardly  be  called  human  beings.  They  were  insen- 
sible to  praise  and  blame,  to  promises  and  threats.  And  yet  it 
was  pity  of  them :  for  they  were  physically  the  finest  race  of 
men  in  the  world.* 

By  this  time  Schomberg  had  opened  the  campaign  auspi- 
ciously. He  had  with  little  difficulty  taken  Charlemont,  the  last 
important  fastness  which  the  Irish  occupied  in  Ulster.  But  the 
great  work  of  reconquering  the  three  southern  provinces  of  the 
island  he  deferred  till  William  should  arrive.  "William  mean- 
while was  busied  in  making  arrangements  for  the  government 
and  defence  of  England  during  his  absence.  He  well  knew 
that  the  Jacobites  were  on  the  alert.  They  had  not  till  very 
lately  been  an  united  and  organised  faction.  There  had  been, 
to  use  Melfort's  phrase,  numerous  gangs,  which  were  all  in 
communication  with  James  at  Dublin  Castle,  or  with  Mary  of 
INIodena  at  Saint  Germains,  but  which  had  no  connection  with 
each  other  and  were  unwilling  to  trust  each  other.t  But  since 
it  had  been  known  that  the  usurper  was  about  to  cross  the  sea, 
and  that  his  sceptre  would  be  left  in  a  female  hand,  these  gangs 
had  been  drawing  close  together,  and  had  begun  to  form  one 
extensive  confederacy.  Clarendon,  who  had  refused  the  oaths, 
and  Ailesbury,  who  had  dishonestly  taken  them,  were  among 
the  chief  traitors.  Dartmouth,  though  he  had  sworn  allegiance 
to  the  sovereigns  who  were  in  possession,  was  one  of  their  most 
active  enemies,  and  undertook  what  may  be  called  the  maritime 
department  of  the  plot.  His  mind  was  constantly  occupied  by 
schemes,  disgraceful  to  an  English  seaman,  for  the  destruction 
of  the  English  fleets  and  arsenals.  He  was  in  close  communi- 
cation with  some  naval  officers,  who,  though  they  served  the 
new  government,  served  it  sullenly  and  with  half  a  heart ;  and 

*  "  La  politique  des  Anglois  a  etc  de  tenir  ces  peuples  cy  comme  des  esclaves, 
et  si  bus  qu'il  ne  leur  estoit  pus  permis  d'apprendre  a  lire  et  a  eVrire.  Cela  lea 
a  rendu  si  bestes  qu'ils  n'ont  presque  point  d'humanite.  Kien  ne  les  esmeut. 
Us  sont  peu  seiisibles  a  1'honneur  ;  et  les  menaces  ne  les  estonnent  point.  L'in- 
terest  meme  ne  les  peut  engager  au  travail.  Ce  sont  pourtant  les  gens  du  monde 
lee  mieux  fails."— Desgrigny  to  Louvois,  -*-  v~:  1690. 

t  See  Melfort's  Letters  to  James  written  in  October  1689.  They  are  among 
the  Nairne  Papers,  and  were  printed  by  Macphersou. 


524  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

he  flattered  himself  that  by  promising  these  men  ample  rewards, 
and  by  artfully  inflaming  the  jealous  animosity  with  which  they 
regarded  the  Dutch  flag,  he  should  prevail  on  them  to  desert 
and  to  carry  their  ships  into  some  French  or  Irish  port.* 

The  conduct  of  Penn  was  scarcely  less  scandalous.  He  was 
a  zealous  and  busy  Jacobite  ;  and  his  new  way  of  life  was  even 
more  unfavourable  than  his  late  way  of  life  had  been  to  moral 
purity.  It  was  hardly  possible  to  be  at  once  a  consistent  Quaker 
and  a  courtier :  but  it  was  utterly  impossible  to  be  at  once  a 
consistent  Quaker  and  a  conspirator.  It  is  melancholy  to 
relate  that  Penn,  while  professing  to  consider  even  defensive 
war  as  sinful,  did  everything  in  his  power  to  bring  a  foreign 
army  into  the  heart  of  his  own  country.  He  wrote  to  inform 
James  that  the  adherents  of  the  Prince  of  Orange  dreaded  noth- 
ing so  much  as  an  appeal  to  the  sword,  and  that,  if  England 
were  now  invaded  from  France  or  from  Ireland,  the  number  of 
Royalists  would  appear  to  be  greater  than  ever.  Avaux  thought 
this  letter  so  important,  that  he  sent  a  translation  of  it  to  Lewis. f 
A  good  effect,  the  shrewd  ambassador  wrote,  had  been  produced, 
by  this  and  similar  communications,  on  the  mind  of  King  James. 
His  Majesty  was  at  last  convinced  that  he  could  recover  his 
dominions  only  sword  in  hand.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  it  should 
have  been  reserved  for  the  great  preacher  of  peace  to  produce 
this  conviction  in  the  mind  of  the  old  tyrant.^  Penn's  proceed- 

*  Life  of  James,  ii.  443,  450  ;  and  Trials  of  Ash  ton  and  Preston. 

t  Avaux  wrote  thus  to  Lewis  on  the  5th  of  June  1689  :  "  11  nous  est  venu  des 
nouvelles  assez  considerables  d'Angleterre  et  d'Escosse.  Je  me  donne  1'hoiineur 
d'eii  envoyer  des  memoires  a  vostre  Majesl6,  tels  que  je  les  ay  receus  du  Roy  de 
la  Grande  Bretagne.  Le  commencement  des  nouvelles  dattees  d'Angleterre  est 
la  copie  d'une  lettre  de  M.  Pen,  que  j'ay  veue  en  original."  The  Mdmoire  des 
Nouvelles  d'Angleterre  et  d'Escosse,  which  was  sent  with  this  despatch,  begins 
with  the  following  sentences,  which  must  therefore  have  been  part  of  Penn's 
letter :  "  Le  Prince  d'Orange  commence  d'estre  fort  degoutte  de  1'humeur  des 
Anglois  ;  et  la  face  des  choses  change  bien  viste,  selon  la  nature  des  insulaires  ; 
et  sa  sante  est  fort  mauvaise.  II  y  a  un  nuage  qui  commence  a  su  former  au  nord 
des  deux  royaumes,  oil  le  Roy  a  beaucoup  d'amis,  ce  qui  donne  beaucoup  d'in- 
quietude  aux  principaux  amis  du  Prince  d'Orange,  qui  estant  riches,  commencent 
a  estre  persuadez  que  ce  sera  1'espee  qui  decidera  de  leur  sort,  ce  qu'ils  ont  tant 
tach6  d'eviter.  Us  apprehendent  tine  invasion  d'Irlande  et  de  France  ;  et  en  ce 
cas  le  Roy  aura  plus  d'amis  que  jamais." 

t  "  Le  bon  effet,  Sire,  que  ces  lettres  d'Escosse  et  d'Angleterre  ont  produit, 
sst  qu'elles  ont  enfin  persua<14  le  Roy  d'Angleterre  qu'il  ne  reconvrera  ses  estata 
que  les  armes  a  la  main  ;  et  ce  n'est  pas  peu  de  1'eu  avoir  coiivauicu." 


"WILLIAM    AND    MART.  525 

ings  had  not  escaped  the  observation  of  the  government.  "War- 
rants had  been  out  against  him  ;  and  he  had  been  taken  into 
custody  ;  but  the  evidence  against  him  had  not  been  such  as 
would  support  a  charge  of  high  treason  :  he  had,  as,  with  all  his 
faults,  he  deserved  to  have,  many  friends  in  every  party :  he 
therefore  soon  regained  his  liberty,  and  returned  to  his  plots.* 

But  the  chief  conspirator  was  Richard  Graham,  Viscount 
Preston,  who  had,  in  the  late  reign,  been  Secretary  of  State. 
Though  a  peer  in  Scotland,  he  was  only  a  baronet  in  England. 
He  had,  indeed,  received  from  Saint  Germains  an  English  pat- 
ent of  nobility,  but  the  patent  bore'a  date  posterior  to  that  flight 
which  the  Convention  had  pronounced  an  abdication.  The  Lords 
had,  therefore,  not  only  refused  to  admit  him  to  a  share  of  their 
privileges,  but  had  sent  him  to  prison  for  presuming  to  call  him- 
self one  of  the  order.  He  had,  however,  by  humbling  himself 
and  by  withdrawing  his  claim,  obtained  his  liberty. f  Though 
the  submissive  language  which  he  had  condescended  to  use  on 
this  occasion  did  not  indicate  a  spirit  prepared  for  martyrdom, 
he  was  regarded  by  his  party,  and  by  the  world  in  general,  as  a 
man  of  courage  and  honour.  He  still  retained  the  seals  of  his 
office,  and  was  still  considered  by  the  adherents  of  indefeasible 
hereditary  right  as  the  real  Secretary  of  State.  He  was  in  high 
favour  with  Lewis,  at  whose  court  he  had  formerly  resided,  and 
had,  since  the  Revolution,  been  entrusted  by  the  French  Gov- 
ernment with  considerable  sums  of  money  for  political  purposes,  t 

While  Preston  was  consulting  in  the  capital  with  the  other 
heads  of  the  faction,  the  rustic  Jacobites  were  laying  in  arms, 
holding  musters,  and  forming  themselves  into  companies,  troops, 
and  regiments.  There  were  alarming  symptoms  in  "Worcester- 
shire. In  Lancashire  many  gentlemen  had  received  commissions 
signed  by  James,  called  themselves  colonels  and  captains,  and 

*  Van  Citters  to  the  States  General,  March  1-11,  1689.  Van  Citters  calls  Penn 
"  den  bekenden  Archquaker." 

t  SeeTiis  trial  in  the  Collection  of  State  Trials,  and  the  Lord*'  Journals  of 
Nov.  11. 12  and  27,  1689. 

t  One  remittance  of  two  thousand  pistoles  is  mentioned  in  a  letter  of  Croi?sy 
to  Avaux,  Feb.  16-26.  1C89.  James,  in  a  letter  dated  Jan.  26,  1689,  directs  Pres- 
ton to  consider  himself  as  still  Secretary,  notwithstanding  Melfort's  appoint- 
ment. 


526  HISTORY    OF    EXGLAXD. 

made  out  long  lists  of  noncommissioned  officers  and  privates. 
Letters  from  Yorkshire  brought  news  that  large  bodies  of  men, 
who  seemed  to  have  met  for  no  good  purpose,  had  been  seen  on 
the  moors  near  Knaresborough.  Letters  from  Newcastle  gave 
an  account  of  a  great  match  at  football  which  had  been  played 
'in  Northumberland,  and  was  suspected  to  have  been  a  pretext 
for  a  gathering  of  the  disaffe«ted.  In  the  crowd,  it  was  said,  were 
a  hundred  and  fifty  horsemen  well  mounted  and  armed,  of  whom 
many  were  Papists.* 

Meantime  packets  of  letters  full  of  treason  were  constantly 
passing  and  repassing  between  Kent  and  Picardy,  and  between 
Wales  and  Ireland.  Some  of  the  messengers  .were  honest  fana- 
tics :  but  others  were  mere  mercenaries,  and  trafficked  in  the 
secrets  of  w-hich  they  were  the  bearers. 

Of  these  double  traitors  the  most  remarkable  was  William 
Fuller.  This  man  has  himself  told  us  that,  when  he  was  very 
young,  he  fell  in  with  a  pamphlet  which  contained  an  account 
\  of  the  flagitious  life  and  horrible  death  of  Dangerfield.  The 
boy's  imagination  was  set  on  fire :  he  devoured  the  book :  he 
almost  got  it  by  heart ;  and  he  was  soon  seized,  and  ever  after 
haunted,  by  a  strange  presentiment  that  his  fate  would  resemble 
that  of  the  wretched  adventurer  whose  history  he  had  so  eager- 
ly read.f  It  might  have  been  supposed  that  the  prospect  of 
dying  in  Newgate,  with  a  back  flayed  and  an  eye  knocked  out, 
would  not  have  seemed  very  attractive.  But  experience  proves 
that  there  are  some  distempered  minds  for  which  notoriety, 
even  when  accompanied  with  pain  and  shame,  has  an  irresistible 
fascination.  Animated  by  this  loathsome  ambition,  Fuller 
equalled,  and  perhaps  surpassed,  his  model.  He  was  bred  a 
Koman  Catholic,  and  was  page  to  Lady  Melfort,  when  Lady 

*  Narcissus  Luttrell's  Diary ;  Commons'  Journals,  May  14,  15,  20,  1690 ; 
Kingston's  True  History,  1C97. 

t  The  Whole  Life  of  Mr.  William  Fuller,  being  an  Impartial  Account  of  his 
Birth,  Education,  Relations  and  Introduction  into  the  service  of  the  late  King 
James  and  his  Queen,  together  with  a  True  Discovery  of  the  Intrigues  for  which 
he  lies  now  confined  ;  as  also  of  the  Persons  that  employed  and  assisted  him 
therein,  with  his  Hearty  Repentance  for  the  Misdemeanours  he  did  in  the  late 
Reign,  and  all  others  whom  he  hath  injured  ;  impartially  writ  by  Himself  during 
his  Confinement  in  the  Queen's  Bench,  1703.  Of  coarse  I  shall  use  this  narrative 
with  caution. 


•WILLIAM   AND    MART.  527 

Melfort  shone  at  Whitehall  as  one  of  the  loveliest  women  in 
the  train  of  Mary  of  Modena.  After  the  Revolution,  he  fol- 
lowed his  mistress  to  France,  was  repeatedly  employed  in  deli- 
cate and  perilous  commissions,  and  was  thought  at  Saint  Ger- 
mains  to  be  a  devoted  servant  of  the  House  of  Stuart.  In 
truth,  however,  he  had,  in  the  course  of  ooe  of  his  expeditions 
to  London,  sold  himself  to  the  new  government,  and  had  ab- 
jured the  faith  in  which  he  had  been  brought  up.  The  honour, 
if  it  is  to  be  so  called,  of  turning  him  from  a  worthless  Papist 
into  a  worthless  Protestant  he  ascribed,  with  characteristic  im- 
pudence, to  the  lucid  reasoning  and  blameless  life  of  Tillotson. 

In  the  spring  of  1690,  Mary  of  Modena  wished  to  send  to 
her  correspondents  in  London  somehighly  important  despatches. 
As  these  despatches  were  too  bulky  to  be  concealed  in  the  clothes 
of  a  single  messenger,  it  was  necessary  to  employ  two  confiden- 
tial persons.  Fuller  was  one.  The  other  was  a  zealous  young 
Jacobite  named  Crone.  Before  they  set  out,  they  received  full 
instructions  from  the  Queen  herself.  Not  a  scrap  of  paper  was 
to  be  detected  about  them  by  an  ordinary  Search ;  but  their 
buttons  contained  letters  written  in  invisible  ink. 

The  pair  proceeded  to  Calais.  The  governor  of  that  town 
furnished  them  with  a  boat,  which,  under  cover  of  the  night, 
set  them  on  the  low  marshy  coast  of  Kent,  near  the  lighthouse 
of  Dungeness.  They  walked  to  a  farmhouse,  procured  horses, 
and  took  different  roads  to  London.  Fuller  hastened  to  the 
palace  at  Kensington,  and  delivered  the  documents  with  which 
he  was  charged  into  the  King's  hand.  The  first  letter  which 
William  unrolled  seemed  to  contain  only  florid  compliments  : 
but  a  pan  of  charcoal  was  lighted  :  a  liquor  well  known  to  the 
diplomatists  of  that  age  was  applied  to  the  paper  :  an  unsavoury 
steam  filled  the  closet ;  and  lines  full  of  grave  meaning  began 
to  appear. 

The  first  thing  to  be  done  was  to  secure  Crone.  He  had 
unfortunately  had  time  to  deliver  his  letters  before  he  was 
caught ;  but  a  snare  was  laid  for  him  into  which  he  easily 
fell.  In  truth  the  sincere  Jacobites  were  generally  wretched 
plotters.  There  was  among  them  an  unusually  large  proper- 


528  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

tion  of  sots,  braggarts,  and  babblers  ;  and  Crone  was  one  of 
these.  Had  he  been  wise,  he  would  have  shunned  places  of 
public  resort,  kept  strict  guard  over  his  tongue,  and  stinted  him- 
self to  one  bottle  at  a  meal.  He  was  found  by  the  messengers 
of  the  government  at  a  tavern  table  in  Gracechurch  Street, 
swallowing  bumpers  to  the  health  of  King  James,  and  ranting 
about  the  coming  restoration,  the  French  fleet,  and  the  thou- 
sands of  honest  Englishmen  who  were  awaiting  the  signal  to 
rise  in  arms  for  their  rightful  Sovereign.  He  was  carried  to 
the  Secretary's  office  at  Whitehall.  He  at  first  seemed  to  be 
confident  and  at  his  ease  ;  but  when,  among  the  bystanders, 
Fuller  appeared  at  liberty,  and  in  a  fashionable  garb,  with  a 
sword,  the  prisoner's  courage  fell ;  and  he  was  scarcely  able  to 
articulate.* 

The  news  that  Fuller  had  turned  king's  evidence,  that  Crone 
had  been  arrested,  and  that  important  letters  from  Saint  Germains 
were  in  the  hands  of  William,  flew  fast  through  London,  and 
spread  dismay  among  all  who  were  conscious  of  guilt,  f  It  was 
true  that  the  testhnony  of  one  witness,  even  if  that  witness  had 
been  more  respectable  than  Fuller,  was  not  legally  sufficient  to 
convict  any  person  of  high  treason.  But  Fuller  had  so  man- 
aged matters  that  several  witnesses  could  be  produced  to  cor- 
roborate his  evidence  against  Crone  ;  and,  if  Crone,  under  the 
strong  terror  of  death,  should  imitate  Fuller's  example,  the 
heads  of  all  the  chiefs  of  the  conspiracy  would  be  at  the  mercy 
of  the  government.  The  spirits  of  the  Jacobites  rose,  however, 
when  it  was  known  that  Crone,  though  repeatedly  interrogated 
by  those  who  had  him  in  their  power,  and  though  assured  that 
nothing  but  a  frank  confession  could  save  his  life,  had  resolute- 
ly continued  silent.  What  effect  a  verdict  of  Guilty  and  the 
near  prospect  of  the  gallows  might  produce  on  him  remained  to 
be  seen.  His  accomplices  were  by  no  means  willing  that  his 
fortitude  should  be  tried  by  so  severe  a  test.  They  therefore 
employed  numerous  artifices,  legal  and  illegal,  to  avert  a  con- 
viction. A  woman  named  Clifford,  with  whom  he  had  lodged, 

*  Fuller's  Life  of  himself. 

t  Clarendon's  Diary,  March  6,  1690;  Narcissus  Luttrell's  Diary. 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  529 

and  who  was  one  of  the  most  active  and  cunning  agents  of  the 
Jacobite  faction,  was  entrusted  with  the  duty  of  keeping  him 
steady  to  the  cause,  and  of  rendering  to  him  services  from  which 
scrupulous  or  timid  agents  might  have  shrunk.  When  the 
dreaded  day  came,  Fuller  was  too  ill  to  appear  in  the  witness 
box,  and  the  trial  was  consequently  postponed.  He  asserted 
that  his  malady  was  not  natural,  that  a  noxious  drug  had  been 
administered  to  him  in  a  dish  of  porridge,  that  his  nails  were 
discoloured,  that  his  hair  came  off,  and  that  able  physicians  pro- 
nounced him  poisoned.  But  such  stories,  even  when  they  rest 
on  authority  much  better  than  his,  ought  to  be  received  with 
very  great  distrust. 

While  Crone  nras  awaiting  his  trial,  another  agent  of  the 
Court  of  Saint  Gennains,  named  Tempest,  was  seized  on  the 
road  between  Dover  and  London,  and  was  found  to  be  the 
bearer  of  numerous  letters  addressed  to  malccontents  in  Eng- 
land.* Every  day  it  became  more  plain  that  the  State  was 
surrounded  by  dangers  ;  and  yet  it  was  absolutely  necessary 
that,  at  this  conjuncture,  the  Chief  of  the  State  should  quit  his 
post. 

William,  with  painful  anxiety,  such  as  he  alone  was  able 
to  conceal  under  an  appearance  of  stoical  serenity,  prepared  to 
take  his  departure.  Mary  was  in  agonies  of  grief ;  and  her 
distress  affected  him  more  than  was  imagined  by  those  who 
judged  of  his  heart  by  his  demeanour.f  He  knew  too  that  he 
was  about  to  leave  her  surrounded  by  difficulties  with  which  her 
habits  had  not  qualified  her  to  contend.  She  would  be  in  con- 
stant need  of  wise  and  upright  counsel ;  and  where  was  such 
counsel  to  be  found  ?  There  were  indeed  among  his  servants 
many  able  men,  and  a  few  virtuous  men.  But,  even  when  he 
was  present,  their  political  and  personal  animosities  had  too 
often  made  both  their  abilities  and  their  virtues  useless  to  him. 
What  chance  was  there  that  the  gentle  Mary  would  be  able  to 
restrain  that  party  spirit  and  that  emulation  which  had  been  but 

*  Clarendon's  Diary,  May  10,  1690. 

t  He  wrote  to  Portland,  "  Je  plains  la  povre  reine,  qui  eat  en  des  terribles 
afflictions." 

VOL.  HI.— 34 


530  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

very  imperfectly  kept  in  order  by  her  resolute  and  politic  hus- 
band ?  If  the  interior  cabinet  which  was  to  assist  the  Queen 
were  composed  exclusively  either  of  Whigs  or  of  Tories,  half 
the  nation  would  be  disgusted.  Yet,  if  Whigs  and  Tories  were 
mixed,  it  was  certain  that  there  would  be  constant  dissension. 
Such  was  William's  situation  that  he  had  only  a  choice  of 
evils. 

All  these  difficulties  were  increased  by  the  conduct  of  Shrews- 
bury. The  character  of  this  man  is  a  curious  study.  He  seemed 
to  be  the  petted  favourite  both  of  nature  and  of  fortune.  Illus- 
trious birth,  exalted  rank,  ample  possessions,  fine  parts,  exten- 
sive acquirements,  an  agreeable  person,  manners  singularly 
graceful  and  engaging,  combined  to  make  him  an  object  of 
admiration  and  envy.  But,  with  all  these  advantages,  he  had 
some  moral  and  intellectual  peculiarities  which  made  him  a 
torment  to  himself,  and  to  all  connected  with  him.  His  con- 
duct at  the  time  of  the  Revolution  had  given  the  world  a  high 
opinion,  not  merely  of  his  patriotism,  but  of  his  courage,  energy, 
and  decision.  It  should  seem,  however,  that  youthful  enthusi- 
asm and  the  exhilaration  produced  by  public  sympathy  and  ap- 
plause had,  on  that  occasion,  raised  him  above  himself.  Scarce- 
ly any  other  part  of  his  life  was  of  a  piece  with  that  splendid 
commencement.  He  had  hardly  become  Secretary  of  State  when 
it  appeared  that  his  nerves  were  too  weak  for  such  a  post.  The 
daily  toil,  the  heavy  responsibility,  the  failures,  the  mortifica- 
tions, the  obloquy,  which  are  inseparable  from  power,  broke 
his  spirit,  soured  his  temper,  and  impaired  his  health.  To  such 
natures  as  his  the  sustaining  power  of  high  religious  principle 
seems  to  be  peculiarly  necessary  ;  and  unfortunately  Shrewsbury 
had,  in  the  act  of  shaking  off  the  yoke  of  that  superstition  in 
which  he  had  been  brought  up,  liberated  himself  also  from 
more  salutary  bands  which  might  perhaps  have  braced  his  too 
delicately  constituted  mind  into  steadfastness  and  uprightness. 
Destitute  of  such  support,  he  was,  with  great  abilities,  a  weak 
man,  and  though  endowed  with  many  amiable  and  attractive  quali- 
ties, could  not  be  called  an  honest  man.  For  his  own  happiness, 
he  should  either  have  been  much  better  or  much  worse.  As  it 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  531 

was,  he  never  knew  either  that  noble  peace  of  mind  which 
is  the  reward  of  rectitude,  or  that  abject  peace  of  mind  which 
springs  from  impudence  and  insensibility.  Few  people  who 
have  had  so  little  power  to  resist  temptation  have  suffered  so 
cruelly  from  remorse  and  shame. 

To  a  man  of  this  temper  the  situation  of  a  minister  of  state 
during  the  year  which  followed  the  Revolution  must  have  been 
constant  torture.  The  difficulties  by  which  the  government 
was  beset  on  all  sides,  the  malignity  of  its  enemies,  the  unrea- 
sonableness of  its  friends,  the  virulence  with  which  the  hostile 
factions  fell  on  each  other  and  on  every  mediator  who  attempted 
to  part  them,  might  indeed  have  discouraged  a  more  resolute 
spirit.  Before  Shrewsbury  had  been  six  months  in  office,  he  had 
completely  lost  heart  and  head.  He  began  to  address  to  Wil- 
liam letters  which  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  that  a  prince  so  strong- 
minded  can  have  read  without  mingled  compassion  and  contempt. 
"I  am  sensible," — such  was  the  constant  burden  of  these 
epistles, — "  that  I  am  unfit  for  my  place.  I  cannot  exert  my- 
self. I  am  not  the  same  man  that  I  was  half  a  year  ago.  My 
health  is  giving  way.  My  mind  is  on  the  rack.  My  memory 
is  failing.  Nothing  but  quiet  and  retirement  can  restore  me." 
William  returned  friendly  and  soothing  answers ;  and  for  a  time 
these  answers  calmed  the  troubled  mind  of  his  minister.*  But 
at  length  the  dissolution,  the  general  election,  the  change  in  the 
Commissions  of  Peace  and  Lieutenancy,  and  finally  the  debates 
on  the  two  Abjuration  Bills,  threw  Shrewsbury  into  a  state 
bordering  on  distraction.  He  was  angry  with  the  Whigs  for 
using  the  King  ill,  and  still  more  angry  with  the  King  for  show- 
ing favour  to  the  Tories.  At  what  moment  and  by  what  in- 
fluence the  unhappy  man  was  induced  to  commit  a  treason, 
the  consciousness  of  which  threw  a  dark  shade  over  all  his 
remaining  years,  is  not  accurately  known.  But  it  is  highly 
probable  that  his  mother,  who,  though  the  most  abandoned  of 
women,  had  great  power  over  him,  took  a  fatal  advantage  of 
some  unguarded  hour,  when  he  was  irritated  by  finding  his 
advice  slighted,  and  that  of  Danby  and  Nottingham  preferred. 
*  See  the  Letters  of  Shrewsbury  in  Coxe's  Correspondence,  Part  I.  chap.  i. 


532  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

She  was  still  a  member  of  that  Church  which  her  son  had  quit- 
ted, and  *may  have  thought  that,  by  reclaiming  him  from 
rebellion,  she  might  make  some  atonement  for  the  violation  of 
her  marriage  vow  and  the  murder  of  her  lord.*  What  is  cer- 
tain is  that,  before  the  end  of  the  spring  of  1690,  Shrewsbury 
had  offered  his  services  to  James,  and  that  James  had  accepted 
them.  One  proof  of  the  sincerity  of  the  convert  was  demanded. 
He  must  resign  the  seals  which  he  had  taken  from  the  hand  of 
the  usurper,  f  It  is  probable  that  Shrewsbury  had  scarcely  com- 
mitted his  fault  when  he  began  to  repent  of  it.  But  he  had  not 
strength  of  mind  to  stop  short  in  the  path  of  evil.  Loathing 
his  own  baseness,  dreading  a  detection  which  must  be  fatal  to 
his  honour,  afraid  to  go  forward,  afraid  to  go  back,  he  under- 
went tortures  of  which  it  is  impossible  to  think  without  com- 
miseration. The  true  cause  of  his  distress  was  as  yet  a  profound 
secret :  but  his  mental  struggles  and  changes  of  purpose  were 
generally  known,  and  furnished  the  town,  during  some  weeks, 
with  topics  of  conversation.  One  night,  when  he  was  actually 
setting  out  in  a  state  of  great  excitement  for  the  palace,  with 
the  seals  in  his  hand,  he  was  induced  by  Burnet  to  defer  his 
resignation  for  a  few  hours.  Some  days  later  the  eloquence  of 
Tillotson  was  employed  for  the  same  purpose. $  Three  or  four 
times  the  Earl  laid  the  ensigns  of  his  office  on  the  table  of  the 
royal  closet,  and  was  three  or  four  times  induced,  by  the  kind 
expostulations  of  the  master  whom  he  was  conscious  of  having 
wronged,  to  take  them  up  and  carry  them  away.  Thus  the 
resignation  was  deferred  till  the  eve  of  the  King's  departure. 
By  that  time  agitation  had  thrown  Shrewsbury  into  a  low  fever. 
Bentinck,  who  made  a  last  effort  to  persuade  him  to  retain 
office,  found  him  in  bed  and  too  ill  for  conversation.  §  The 

*  That  Lady  Shrewsbury  was  a  Jacobite,  and  did  her  best  to  make  her  son  so, 
Is  certain  from  Lloyd's  Paper  of  May  1694,  which  is  among  the  Kairne  MSS.,  and 
was  printed  by  Macpherson. 

t  This  is  proved  by  a  few  words  in  a  paper  which  James,  in  November  1C92, 
laid  before  the  French  government.  "  II  y  a,"  says  he,  "  le  Comte  de  Shrusbery, 
qui,  dtant  Secretaire  d'Etat  du  Prince  d'Orange,  s'est  defait  de  sa  charge  par 
mon  ordre,"  One  copy  of  this  most  valuable  paper  is  in, the  Archives  of  tho 
French  Foreign  Oflice.  Another  is  among  the  Nairne  MS.S.  in  the  Bodleian 
Library.  A  translation  into  English  will  be  found  in  Macpherson's  collection. 

t  Buniet,  ji,  45.  §  Shrewsbury  to  Somers,  Sept.  22, 1C97. 


WILLIAM   AND   MART.  533 

resignation  so  often  tendered  was  at  length  accepted,  and  dur- 
ing some  months  Nottingham  was  the  only  Secretary  of  State. 

It  was  no  small  addition  to  William's  trouble  that,  at  such 
a  moment,  his  government  should  be  weakened  by  this  defection. 
He  tried,  however,  to  do  his  best  with  the  materials  which  re- 
mained to  him,  and  finally  selected  nine  privy  councillors,  by 
whose  advice  he  enjoined  Mary  to  be  guided.  Four  of  these, 
Devonshire,  Dorset,  Mon mouth,  and  Edward  Russell,  were 
Whigs.  The  other  five,  Caermarthen,  Pembroke,  Nottingham, 
Marlborough,  and  Lowther,  were  Tories.* 

William  ordered  the  nine  to  attend  him  at  the  office  of  the 
Secretary  of  State.  When  they  were  assembled,  he  came  lead- 
ing in  the  Queen,  desired  them  to  be  seated,  and  addressed  to 
them  a  few  earnest  and  weighty  words.  "  She  wants  experience," 
he  said  :  "  but  I  hope  that,  by  choosing  you  to  be  her  counsellors, 
I  have  supplied  that  defect.  I  put  my  kingdom  into  your 
hands.  Nothing  foreign  or  domestic  shall  be  kept  secret  from 
you.  I  implore  you  to  be  diligent  and  to  be  united."f  In 
private  he  told  his  wife  what  he  thought  of  the  characters  of 
the  Nine  ;  and  it  should  seem,  from  her  letters  to  him,  that 
there  were  few  of  the  number  for  whom  he  expressed  any  high 
esteem.  Marlborough  was  to  be  her  guide  in  military  affairs, 
and  was  to  command  the  troops  in  England.  Russell,  who  was 
Admiral  of  the  Blue,  and  had  been  rewarded  for  the  service 
which  he  had  done  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution  with  the  lu- 
crative place  of  Treasurer  of  the  Navy,  was  well  fitted  to  be 
her  adviser  on  all  questions  relating  to  the  fleet.  But  Caer- 
marthen was  designated  as  the  person  on  whom,  in  case  of  any 
difference  of  opinion  in  the  council,  she  ought  chiefly  to  rely. 
Caermarthen's  sagacity  and  experience  were  unquestionable  : 
his  principles,  indeed,  were  lax  :  but  if  there  was  any  person 

•  Among  the  State  Poems  (vol.  ii.  p.  211)  will  be  found  a  piece  which  some 

ignorant  editor  has  entitled,  "  A  Satyr  written  when  the  K went  to  Flanders 

and  left  nine  Lords  Justices."  I  have  a  manuscript  copy  of  this  satire,  evidently 
contemporary,  and  hearing  the  date  1690.  It  is  indeed  evident  at  a  glance  that 
the  nine  persons  satirised  are  the  nine  members  of  the  interior  council  which 
William  appointed  to  assist  Mary  when  he  went  to  Ireland.  Some  of  them  never 
were  Lords  Justices. 

t  From  a  narrative  written  by  Lowther,  which  is  among  the  Mackintosh  MSS. 


534  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

in  existence  to  whom  he  was  likely  to  be  true,  that  person  was 
Mary.  He  had  long  been  in  a  peculiar  manner  her  friend  and 
servant :  he  had  gained  a  high  place  in  her  favour  by  bringing 
about  her  marriage  ;  and  he  had,  in  the  Convention,  carried  his 
zeal  for  her  interest  to  a  length  which  she  had  herself  blamed 
as  excessive.  There  was,  therefore,  every  reason  to  hope  that 
he  would  serve  her  at  this  critical  conjuncture  with  sincere  good 
will.* 

One  of  her  nearest  kinsmen,  on  the  other  hand,  was  one  of 
her  bitterest  enemies.  The  evidence  which  was  in  the  possession 
of  the  government  proved  beyond  dispute  that  Clarendon  was 
deeply  concerned  in  the  Jacobite  schemes  of  insurrection.  But 
the  Queen  was  most  unwilling  that  her  kindred  should  be  harsh- 
ly treated  ;  and  William,  remembering  through  what  ties  she 
had  broken,  and  what  reproaches  she  had  incurred,  for  his  sake, 
readily  gave  her  uncle's  life  and  liberty  to  her  intercession.  But 
before  the  King  set  out  for  Ireland,  he  spoke  seriously  to 
Rochester.  "  Your  brother  has  been  plotting  against  me.  I  am 
sure  of  it.  I  have  the  proofs  under  his  own  hand.  I  was  urged 
to  leave  him  out  of  the  Act  of  Grace ;  but  I  would  not  do  what 
would  have  given  so  much  pain  to  the  Queen.  For  her  sake  I 
forgive  the  past :  but  my  Lord  Clarendon  will  do  well  to  be 
cautious  for  the  future.  If  not,  he  will  find  that  these  are  no 
jesting  matters."  Rochester  communicated  the  admonition  to 
Clarendon.  Clarendon,  who  was  in  constant  correspondence 
with  Dublin  and  Saint  Germains,  protested  that  his  only  wish 
was  to  be  quiet,  and  that,  though  he  felt  a  scruple  about  the 
oaths,  the  existing  government  had  not  a  more  obedient  subject 
than  he  purposed  to  be.f 

Among  the  letters  which  the  government  had  intercepted 
was  one  from  James  to  Penn.  That  letter,  indeed,  was  not- 
legal  evidence  to  prove  that  the  person  to  whom  it  was  addressed 
had  been  guilty  of  high  treason  :  but  it  raised  suspicions  which 
are  now  known  to  have  been  well  founded.  Penn  was  brought 
before  the  Privy  Council,  and  interrogated.  He  said  very  truly 

See  Mary's  Letters  to  William,  published  by  Dalrymple. 
i  Clarendon's  Diary,  May  30, 1690. 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  535 

that  he  could  not  prevent  people  from  writing  to  him,  and  that 
he  was  not  accountable  for  what  they  might  write  him.  He 
acknowledged  that  he  was  bound  to  the  late  King  by  ties  of  grati- 
tude and  affection  which  no  change  of  fortune  could  dissolve. 
"  I  should  be  glad  to  do  him  any  service  in  his  private  affairs : 
but  I  owe  a  sacred  duty  to  my  country  ;  and  therefore  I  was 
never  so  wicked  as  even  to  think  of  endeavouring  to  bring  him 
back."  This  was  a  falsehood  ;  and  William  was  probably  aware 
that  it  was  so.  He  was  unwilling  however  to  deal  harshly  with 
a  man  who  had  many  titles  to  respect,  and  who  was  not  likely  to 
be  a  very  formidable  plotter.  He  therefore  declared  himself 
satisfied,  and  proposed  to  discharge  the  prisoner.  Some  of  the 
Privy  Councillors,  however,  remonstrated  ;  and  Penii  was  re- 
quired to  give  bail.* 

On  the  day  before  William's  departure,  he  called  Burnet  into 
bis  closet,  and,  in  firm  but  mournful  language,  spoke  of  the  dan- 
gers which  on  every  side  menaced  the  realm,  of  the  fury  of  the 
contending  factions,  and  of  the  evil  spirit  which  seemed  to  pos- 
sess too  many  of  the  clergy.  "  But  my  trust  is  in  God.  I  will 
go  through  with  my  work  or  perish  in  it.  Only  I  cannot  help 
feeling  for  the  poor  Queen  ;  and  twice  he  repeated  with  un- 
wonted tenderness,  "  the  poor  Queen."  "  If  you  love  me,"  he 
added,  "  wait  on  her  often,  and  give  her  what  help  you  can. 
As  for  me,  but  for  one  thing,  I  should  enjoy  the  prospect  of 
being  on  horseback  and  under  canvass  again.  For  I  am  sure 
that  I  am  fitter  to  direct  a  campaign  than  to  manage  your  Houses 
of  Lords  and  Commons.  But  though  I  know  that  I  am  in  the 
path  of  duty,  it  is  hard  on  my  wife  that  her  father  and  I  must  be 
opposed  to  each  other  in  the  field.  God  send  that  no  harm  may 
happen  to  him.  Let  me  have  your  prayers,  Doctor."  Burnet 
retired  greatly  moved,  and  doubtless  put  up,  with  no  common 
fervour,  those  prayers  for  which  his  master  had  asked,  f 

On  the  following  day,  the  fourth  of  June,  the  King  set  out 
for  Ireland.  Prince  George  had  offered  his  services,  had  equip- 
ped himself  at  great  charge,  and  fully  expected  to  be  com- 
plimuuted  with  a  seat  in  the  royal  coach.  But  William,  who 

*  Gerard  Croese.  t  Buniet,  ii.  46. 


53(5  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

promised  himself  little  pleasure  or  advantage  from  His  Royal 
Higlmess's  conversation,  and  who  seldom  stood  on  ceremony, 
took  Portland  for  a  travelling  companion,  and  never  once, 
during  the  whole  of  that  eventful  campaign,  seemed  to  be  aware 
of  the  Prince's  existence,  f  George,  if  left  to  himself,  would 
hardly  have  noticed  the  affront.  But,  though  he  was  too  dull 
to  feel,  his  wife  felt  for  him  ;  arid  her  resentment  was  studiously 
kept  alive  hy  mischiefmakers  of  no  common  dexterity.  On 
this,  as  on  many  other  occasions,  the  infirmities  of  William's 
temper  proved  seriously  detrimental  to  the  great  interests  of 
which  he  was  the  guardian.  His  reign  would  have  been  far 
more  prosperous  if,  with  his  own  courage,  capacity,  and  eleva- 
tion of  mind,  he  had  had  a  little  of  the  easy  good  humour  and 
politeness  of  his  uncle  Charles. 

In  four  days  the  King  arrived  at  Chester,  where  a  fleet 
of  transports  was  awaiting  the  signal  for  sailirg.  He  em- 
barked on  the  eleventh  of  June,  and  was  convoyed  across  Saint 
George's  Channel  by  a  squadron  of  men  o±  war  under  the 
command  of  Sir  Cloudesley  Shovel.* 

The  month  which  followed  William's  departure  from  Lon- 
don was  one  of  the  most  eventful  and  anxious  months  in  the 
whole  history  of  England.  A  few  hours  after  he  had  set  out, 
Crone  was  brought  to  the  bar  of  the  Old  Bailey.  A  great  array 
of  judges  was  on  the  bench.  Fuller  had  recovered  sufficiently  to 
make  his  appearance  in  court ;  and  the  trial  proceeded.  The 
Jacobites  had  been  indefatigable  in  their  efforts  to  ascertain  the 
political  opinions  of  the  persons  whose  names  were  on  the  jury 
list.  So  many  were  challenged  that  there  was  some  difficulty 
in  making  up  the  number  of  twelve  ;  and  among  the  twelve  was 
one  on  whom  the  malecontents  thought  that  they  could  depend. 
Nor.  were  they  altogether  mistaken ;  for  this  man  held  out 
against  his  eleven  companions  all  night  and  half  the  next  day  ; 
and  he  would  probably  have  starved  them  into  submission  had 
not  Mrs.  Clifford,  who  was  in  league  with  him,  been  caught 

*  Tlie  Duchess  of  Marlborough's  Vindication. 

t  London  Gazettes.  June  5.  12,   Ifi,  1690  ;   Hop  to  the  States  General  from 
Chester,  June  9-19.    Hop  attended  William  to  Ireland  as  envoy  from  the  States. 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  537 

throwing  sweetmeats  to  him  through  the  window.  His  supplies 
having  been  cut  oif,  he  yielded  ;  and  a  verdict  of  Guilty,  which, 
it  was  said,  cost  two  of  the  jurymen  their  lives,  was  returned.  A 
motion  in  arrest  of  judgment  was  instantly  made,  on  the  ground 
that  a  Latin  word  endorsed  on  the  back  of  the  indictment  was 
incorrectly  spelt.  The  objection  was  undoubtedly  frivolous. 
Jeffreys  would  have  at  once  overruled  it  with  a  torrent  of  curses, 
and  would  have  proceeded  to  the  most  agreeable  part  of  his  duty* 
that  of  describing  to  the  prisoner  the  whole  process  of  half  hang- 
ing, disembowelling,  mutilating  and  quartering.  But  Holt  and 
his  brethren  remembered  that  they  were  now  for  the  first  time 
since  the  Revolution  trying  a  culprit  on  a  charge  of  high  trea- 
son. It  was  therefore  desirable  to  show,  in  a  manner  not  to  be 
misunderstood,  that  a  new  era  had  commenced,  and  'that  the 
tribunals  would  in  future  rather  err  on  the  side  of  humanity 
than  imitate  the  cruel  haste  and  levity  with  which  Cornish  had, 
when  pleading  for  his  life,  been  silenced  by  servile  judges.  The 
passing  of  the  sentence  was  therefore  deferred  :  a  day  was  ap- 
pointed for  considering  the  point  raised  by  Croue  ;  and  counsel 
were  assigned  to  argue  in  his  behalf.  u  This  would  not  have 
been  done,  Mr.  Crone,"  said  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  significant- 
ly, "in  either  of  the  last  two  reigns."  After  a  full  hearing,  the 
Bench  unanimously  pronounced  the  error  to  be  immaterial ;  and 
the  prisoner  was  condemned  to  death.  He  owned  that  his  trial 
had  been  fair,  thanked  the  judges  for  their  patience,  and  besought 
them  to  intercede  for  him  with  the  Queen.* 

He  was  soon  informed  that  his  fate  was  in  his  own  hands. 
The  government  was  willing  to  spare  him  if  he  would  earn  his 
pardon  by  a  full  confession.  The  struggle  in  his  mind  was  ter- 
rible and  doubtful.  At  one  time  Mrs.  Clifford,  who  had  access 
to  his  cell,  reported  to  the  Jacobite  chiefs  that  he  was  in  a  great 
agony.  He  could  not*die,  he  said  :  he  was  too  young  to  be  a 
martyr.f  The  next  morning  she  found  him  cheerful  and  reso- 
Inte4  He  held  out  till  the  eve  of  the  day  fixed  for  his  execu- 

*  Clarendon's  Diary,  June  7  and  12,  1690  ;  Narcissus  Luttrell's  Diary  ;  Baden, 
the  Dutch  Secretary  of  Legation,  to  Van  Citters,  June  10-20;  Fuller's  Life  of 
himself  ;  Welwood's  Mercurius  Reformatus,  June  11,  1690. 

t  Clarendon's  Diary,  June  8, 1G90.  t  Clarendon's  Diary,  June  10 


538  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

X 

tion.  Then  he  sent  to  ask  for  an  interview  with  the  Secretary 
of  State.  Nottingham  went  to  Newgate  :  but,  before  he  ar- 
rived, Crone  had  changed  his  mind  and  was  determined  to  say 
nothing.  "  Then,"  said  Nottingham,  "  I  shall  see  you  no  more  ; 
for  tomorrow  will  assuredly  be  your  last  day."  But  after  Not- 
tingham had  departed  Monmouth  repaired  to  the  gaol,  and  flat- 
tered himself  that  he  had  shaken  the  prisoner's  resolution.  At 
a  very  late  hour  that  night  came  a  respite  for  a  week.*  The 
week  however  passed  away  without  any  disclosure  :  the  gallows 
and  quartering  block  were  ready  at  Tyburn :  the  sledge  and 
axe  were  at  the  door  of  Newgate  :  the  crowd  was  thick  all  up  Hoi- 
born  Hill  and  along  the  Oxford  road  ;  when  a  messenger  brought 
another  respite,  and  Crone,  instead  of  being  dragged  to  the  place 
of  execution,  was  conducted  to  the  Council  chamber  at  White- 
hall. His  fortitude  had  been  at  last  overcome  by  the  near  pros- 
pect of  death  ;  and  on  this  occassion  he  gave  important  infor- 
mation, t 

Such  information  as  he  had  in  his  power  to  give  was  indeed 
at  that  moment  much  needed.  Both  an  invasion  and  an  insur- 
rection were  hourly  expected. :(:  Scarcely  had  William  set  out 
from  London  when  a  great  French  fleet  commanded  by  the 
Count  of  Tourville  left  the  port  of  Brest  and  entered  the 
British  Channel.  Tourville  was  the  ablest  maritime  commander 
that  his  country  then  possessed.  He  had  studied  every  part  of 
his  profession.  It  was  said  of  him  that  he  was  competent  to 
fill  any  place  on  shipboard  from  that  of  carpenter  up  to  that  of 
Admiral.  It  was  said  of  him,  also,  that  to  the  dauntless  cour- 
age of  a  seaman  he  united  the  suavity  and  urbanity  of  an  ac- 
complished gentleman. §  He  now  stood  over  to  the  English 
shore,  and  approached  it  so  near  that  his  ships  could  be  plainly 
descried  from  the  ramparts  of  Plymouth.  From  Plymouth  he 
proceeded  slowly  along  the  coast  of  Devonshire  and  Dorsetshire. 

*  Baden  to  Van  Citters,  June  20-30,  1690  ;  Clarendon's  Diary,  June  19  ;  Lut- 
trell's  Diary. 

t  Clarendon's  Diary,  June  25. 

t  Luttrell's  Diary. 

§  Memoirs  of  Saint  Simon. 


WILLIAM    AND    MART.  539 

There  was  great  reason  to  apprehend  that  his  movements  had 
been  concerted  with  the  English  malecontents.* 

The  Queen  and  her  Council  hastened  to  take  measures  for 
the  defence  of  the  country  against  both  foreign  and  domestic 
enemies.  Torrington  took  the  command  of  the  English  fleet 
which  lay  in  the  Downs,  and  sailed  to  Saint  Helens.  He  was 
there  joined  by  a  Dutch  squadron  under  the  command  of  Evert- 
sen.  It  seemed  that  the  cliffs  of  the  Isle  of  Wight  would  wit- 
ness one  of  the  greatest  naval  conflicts  recorded  in  history.  A 
hundred  and  fifty  ships  of  the  line  could  be  counted  at  once 
•from  the  watchtower  of  Saint  Catharine.  On  the  east  of  the 
'  huge  precipice  of  Black  Gang  Chine,  and  in  full  view  of  the 
richly  wooded  rocks  of  Saint  Lawrence  and  Ventnor,  were  col- 
lected the  maritime  forces  of  England  and  Holland.  On  the 
west,  stretching  to  that  white  cape  where  the  waves  roar  among 
the  Needles,  lay  the  armament  of  France. 

It  was  on  the  twenty-sixth  of  June,  less  than  a  fortnight 
after  Willliam  had  sailed  for  Ireland,  that  the  hostile  fleets  took 
up  these  positions.  A  few  hours  earlier,  there  had  been  an  im- 
portant and  anxious  sitting  of  the  Privy  Council  at  Whitehall. 
The  malecontents  who  were  leagued  with  France  were  alert 
and  full  of  hope.  Mary  had  remarked,  while  taking  her  airing, 
that  Hyde  Park  was  swarming  with  them.  The  whole  board 
was  of  opinion  that  it  was  necessary  to  arrest  some  persons  of 
whose  guilt  the  government  had  proofs.  When  Clarendon  was 
named,  something  was  said  in  his  behalf  by  his  friend  and  rela- 
tion Sir  Henry  Capel.  The  other  councillors  stared,  but  re- 
mained silent.  It  was  no  pleasant  task  to  accuse  the  Queen's 
kinsman  in  the  Queen's  presence.  Mary  had  scarcely  ever 
opened  her  lips  at  Council :  but  now,  being  possessed  of  clear 
proofs  of  her  uncle's  treason  in  his  own  handwriting,  and  know- 
ing that  respect  for  her  prevented  her  advisers  from  proposing 
what  the  public  safety  required,  she  broke  silence.  "  Sir  Henry," 
she  said,  "  I  know,  and  everybody  here  knows  as  well  as  I, 
that  there  is  too  much  against  my  Lord  Clarendon  to  leave  him 
out."  The  warrant  was  drawn  up ;  and  Capel  signed  it  with 

*  London  Gazette,  June  26, 1090 ;  Baden  to  Van  Citters,  ?u"e-^ 

July  4. 


540  HISTORY    OP   ENGLAND. 

the  rest.  "I  am  more  sorry  for  Lord  Clarendon,"  Mary  wrote 
to  her  husband,  "  than,  may  be,  will  be  believed."  That  even- 
ing Clarendon,  and  several  other  noted  Jacobites,  were  lodged 
in  the  Tower.* 

When  the  Privy  Council  had  risen,  the  Queen  and  the 
interior  Council  of  Nine  had  to  consider  a  question  of  the 
gravest  importance.  What  orders  were  to  be  sent  to  Torring- 
ton  ?  The  safety  of  the  State  might  depend  on  his  judgment 
and  presence  of  mind ;  and  some  of  Mary's  advisers  apprehend- 
ed that  he  would  not  be  found  equal  to  the  occasion.  Their 
anxiety  increased  when  news  came  that  he  had  abandoned  the- 
coast  of  the  Isle  of  Wight  to  the  French,  and  was  retreating 
before  them  towards  the  Straits  of  Dover.  The  sagacious 

O 

Caermarthen  and  the  enterprising  Monmouth  agreed  in  blaming 
these  cautious  tactics.  It  was  tr.ue  that  Torrington  had  not  so 
m'any  vessels  as  Tourville  :  but  Caermarthen  thought  that,  at 
such  a  time,  it  was  advisable  to  fight,  although  against  odds  ; 
and  Monmouth  was,  through  life,  for  fighting  at  all  times  and 
against  all  odds.  Russell,  who  was  indisputably  one  of  the  best 
seamen  of  the  age,  held  that  the  disparity  of  numbers  was  not 
such  as  ought  to  cause  any  uneasiness  to  an  officer  who  com- 
manded English  and  Dutch  sailors.  lie  therefore  proposed  to 
send  to  the  Admiral  a  reprimand  couched  in  terms  so  severe 
that  the  Queen  did  not  like  to  sign  it.  The  language  was  much 
softened  :  but,  in  the  main,  Russell's  advice  was  followed. 
Torrington  was  positively  ordered  to  retreat  no  further,  and  to 
give  battle  immediately.  Devonshire,  however,  was  still  unsat- 
isfied. "  It  is  my  duty,  Madam," he  said,"  to  tell  Your  Majesty 
exactly  what  I  think  on  a  matter  of  this  importance  ;  and  I 
think  that  my  Lord  Torrington  is  not  a  man  to  be  trusted  with 
the  fate  of  three  kingdoms."  Devonshire  was  right:  but  his 
colleagues  were  unanimously  of  opinion  that  to  supersede  a 
commander  in  sight  of  the  enemy,  and  on  the  eve  of  a  general 
action,  would  be  a  course  full  of  danger  ;  and  it  is  difficult  to 
say  that  they  were  wrong.  "  You  must  either,"  said  Russell, 

•  Mary  to  "William,  June  26,  1G90  ;  Clarendon's  Diary  of  the  same  date  ;  Lut- 
trell's  Diary. 


WILLIAM   AND    MAKT.  541 

"  leave  him  where  he  is,  or  send  for  him  as  a  prisoner."  Several 
expedients  were  suggested.  Caermarthen  proposed  that  Russell 
should  be  sent  to  assist  Torrington.  Monmouth  passionately 
implored  permission  to  join  the  fleet  in  any  capacity,  as  a 
captain,  or  as  a  volunteer.  "  Only  let  me  be  once  on  board ; 
and  I  pledge  my  life  that  there  shall  be  a  battle."  After  much 
discussion  and  hesitation,  it  was  resolved  that  both  Russell  and 
Monmouth  should  go  down  to  the  coast.*  They  set  out,  but 
too  late.  The  despatch  which  ordered  Torrington  to  fight  had 
preceded  them.  It  reached  him  when  he  was  off  Beachy  Head, 
lie  read  it,  and  was  in  a  great  strait.  Not  to  give  battle  was 
to  be  guilty  of  direct  disobedience.  To  give  battle  was,  in  his 
judgment,  to  incur  serious  risk  of  defeat.  He  probably  suspect- 
ed,—  for  he  was  of  a  captious  and  jealous  temper, —  that  the 
instructions  which  placed  him  in  so  painful  a  dilemma  had  been 
framed  by  enemies  and  rivals  with  a  design  unfriendly  to  his 
fortune  and  his  fame.  He  was  exasperated  by  the  thought  that 
he  was  ordered  about  and  overruled  by  Russell,  who,  though 
his  inferior  in  professional  rank,  exercised,  as  one  of  the  Council 
of  Nine,  a  supreme  control  over  all  the  departments  of  the 
public  service.  There  seems  to  be  no  sufficient  ground  for 
charging  Torrington  with  disaffection.  Still  less  can  it  be 
suspected  that  an  officer,  whose  whole  life  had  been  passed  in 
confronting  danger,  and  who  had  always  borne  himself  bravely, 
wanted  the  personal  courage  which  hundreds  of  sailors  on  board 
of  every  ship  under  his  command  possessed.  But  there  is  a 
higher  courage  of  which  Torrington  was  wholly  destitute.  He 
shrank  from  all  responsibility,  from  the  responsibility  of  fighting, 
and  from  the  responsibility  of  not  fighting ;  and  he^  succeeded 
in  finding  out  a  middle  way  which  united  all  the  inconveniences 
which  he  wished  to  avoid.  He  would  conform  to  the  letter  of 
his  instructions :  yet  he  would  not  put  everything  to  hazard. 
Some  of  his  ships  should  skirmish  with  the  enemy  :  but  the 
great  body  of  his  fleet  should  not  be  risked.  It  was  evident 
that  the  vessels  which  engaged  the  French  would  be  placed  in 
a  most  dangerous  situation,  and  would  suffer  much  loss ;  aud 

Mary  to  William,  Juiie  28,  and  July  2, 1C90. 


542  .          HISTORY   OP   ENGLAND. 

there  is  but  too  good  reason  to  believe  that  Torrington  was  base 
enough  to  lay  his  plans  in  such  a  manner  that  the  danger  and 
loss  might  fall  almost  exclusively  to  the  share  of  the  Dutch. 
He  bore  them  no  love  ;  and  in  England  they  were  so  unpopular 
that  the  destruction  of  their  whole  squadron  was  likely  to  cause 
fewer  murmurs  than  the  capture  of  one  of  our  own  frigates. 

It  was  on  the  twenty-ninth  of  June  that  the  Admiral  received 
the  order  to  fight.  The  next  day,  at  four  in  the  morning,  he 
bore  down  on  the  French  fleet  and  formed  his  vessels  in  order 
of  battle.  He  had  not  sixty  sail  of  the  line,  and  the  French 
had  at  least  eighty ;  but  his  ships  were  more  strongly  manned 
than  those  of  the  enemy.  He  placed  the  Dutch  in  the  van  and 
gave  them  the  signal  to  engage.  That  signal  was  promptly 
obeyed.  Evertsen  and  his  countrymen  fought  with  a  courage 
to  which  both  their  English  allies  and  their  French  enemies,  in 
spite  of  national  prejudices,  did  full  justice.  In  none  of  Van 
Tromp's  or  De  Ruyter's  battles  had  the  honour  of  the  Batavian 
flag  been  more  gallantly  upheld.  During  many  hours  the  van 
maintained  the  unequal  contest  with  very  little  assistance  from 
any  other  part  of  the  fleet.  At  length  the  Dutch  Admiral  drew 
off,  leaving  one  shattered  and  dismasted  hull  to  the  enemy. 
His  second  in  command  and  several  officers  of  high  rank  had 
fallen.  To  keep  the  sea  against  the  French  after  this  disastrous 
and  ignominious  action  was  impossible.  The  Dutch  ships  which 
had  come  out  of  the  fight  were  in  lamentable  condition.  Tor- 
rington ordered  some  of  them  to  be  destroyed  :  the  rest  he  took 
in  tow :  he  then  fled  along  the  coast  of  Kent,  and  sought  a 
refuge  in  the  Thames.  As  soon  as  he  was  in  the  river,  he 
ordered  all  the  buoys  to  be  pulled  up,  and  thus  made  the  navi- 
gation so  dangerous,  that  the  pursuers  could  not  venture  to 
follow  him.* 

*  Report  of  the  Commissioners  of  the  Admiralty  to  the  Queen,  dated  Sheer- 
ness,  July  18, 1690  ;  Evidence  of  Captains  Cornwall,  Jones,  Martin  and  Hubbard, 
and  of  Vice  Admiral  Delaval ;  Burnet,  ii.  52,  and  Speaker  Onslow's  note  ;  M6- 
moires  du  Mar^chal  de  Tourville  ;  Memoirs,  of  Transactions  at  Sea  by  Josiah 
Burchett,  Esq.,  Secretary  to  the  Admiralty,  1703  ;  London  Gazette,  July  3  ;  His- 
torical and  Political  Mercury  for  July  1690  ;  Mary  to  William,  July  2  ;  Torrington 
to  Caermarthen,  July  1.  The  account  of  the  battle  in  the  Paris  Gazette  of  July 
15, 1090  is  not  to  be  read  without  shame.  "  Oil  a  sjeu  que  les  Hollaiidois  a'estoient 


WILLIAM   AND    MARY.  543 

Tt  was,  however,  thought  by  many,  and  especially  by  the 
French  ministers,  that,  if  Tourville  had  been  more  enterprising, 
the  allied  fleet  might  have  been  destroyed.  He  seems  to  have 
borne,  in  one  respect,  too  much  resemblance  to  his  vanquished 
opponent.  Though  a  brave  man,  he  was  a  timid  commander. 
His  life  he  exposed  with  careless  gaiety  ;  but  it  was  said  that 
he  was  nervously  anxious  and  pusillanimously  cautious  when 
his  professional  reputation  was  in  danger.  He  was  so  much 
annoyed  by  these  censures  that  he  soon  became,  unfortunately 
for  his  country,  bold  even  to  temerity.*  .*• 

There  has  scarcely  ever  been  so  sad  a  day  in  London  as 
that  on  which  the  news  of  the  Battle  of  Beachy  Head  arrived. 
The  shame  was  insupportable  :  the  peril  was  imminent.  What 
if  the  victorious  enemy  should  do  what  De  Ruyter  had  done  ? 
What  if  the  dockyards  of  Chatham  should  again  be  destroyed  ? 
What  if  the  Tower  itself  should  be  bombarded  ?  What  if  the 
vast  wood  of  masts  and  yardarms  below  London  Bridge  should 
be  in  a  blaze  ?  Nor  was  this  all.  Evil  tidings  had  just  arrived 
from  the  Low  Countries.  The  allied  forces  under  Waldeck  had, 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Fleurus,  encountered  the  French  com- 
manded by  the  Duke  of  Luxemburg.  The  day  had  been  long 
and  fiercely  disputed.  At  length  the  skill  of  the  French  general 
and  the  impetuous  valour  of  the  French  cavalry  had  prevailed. f 
Thus  at  the  same  moment  the  army  of  Lewis  was  victorious  in 
Flanders,  and  his  navy  was  in  undisputed  possession  of  the 
Channel.  Marshal  Humieres  with  a  considerable  force  lay  not 
far  from  the  Straits  of  Dover.  It  had  been  given  out  that  he 
was  about  to  join  Luxemburg.  But  the  information  which  the 
English  government  received  from  able  military  men  in  the 

tres  bien  battus,  et  qu'ils  s'estoient  comportez  en  cette  occasion  en  braves  gens, 
mais  que  les  Anglois  n'en  avoient  pas  agi  de  memc."  In  the  French  official 
relation  of  the  battle  off  Cape  Bevezier,— an  odd  corruption  of  Pevensey.— are 
eoine  passages  to  the  same  effect :  "  Les  Hollandois  combattirent  avec  beaucoup 
de  courage  et  de  fermete  ;  mais  ils  lie  f  urent  pas  bien  secondez  par  les  Anglois." 
"  Les  Anglois  se  distinguerent  des  valsseaux  de  liollaade  par  le  peu  de  valeur 
qu'lls  montrerent  dans  le  combat-" 
'  «  Life  of  James,  ii.  409  ;  Burnet,  11.  5. 

t  London  Gazette,  June  30, 1690 ;  Historical  and  Political  Mercury  for  July 
1690. 


544  HISTOKY  OP  ENGLAND. 

Netherlands  and  from  spies  who  mixed  with  the  Jacobites,  and 
which  to  so  great  a  master  of  the  art  of  war  as  Marl  borough 
seemed  to  deserve  serious  attention,  was  that  the  army  of 
Ilumieres  would  instantly  march  to  Dunkirk  and  would  there 
be  taken  on  board  of  the  fleet  of  Tourville.*  Between  the 
coast  of  Artois  and  the  Nore  not  a  single  ship  bearing  the  red 
cross  of  Saint  George  could  venture  to  show  herself.  The  em- 
barkation would  be  the  business  of  a  few  hours.  A  few  hours 
more  might  suffice  for  the  voyage.  At  any  moment  London 
might  be  appalled  by  the  news  that  twenty  thousand  French 
veterans  were  in  Kent.  It  was  notorious  that,  in  every  part  of 
the  kingdom,  the  Jacobites  had  been,  during  some  months,  mak- 
ing preparations  for  a  rising.  All  the  regular  troops  who  could 
be  assembled  for  the  defence  of  the  island  did  not  amount  to 
more  than  ten  thousand  men.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  our 
country  has  ever  passed  through  a  more  alarming  crisis  than 
that  of  the  first  week  of  July  1C90. 

But  the  evil  brought  with  it  its  own  remedy.  Those  little 
knew  England  who  imagined  that  she  could  be  in  danger  at 
once  of  rebellion  and  invasion  :  for  in  truth  the  danger  of  in- 
vasion was  the  l>est  security  against  the  danger  of  rebellion. 
The  cause  of  James  was  the  cause  of  France  ;  and  though  to 
superficial  observers  the  French  alliance  seemed  to  be  his  chief 
support,  it  really  was  the  obstacle  which  made  his  restoration 
impossible.  In  the  patriotism,  the  too  often  unamiable  and 
unsocial  patriotism  of  our  forefathers,  lay  the  secret  at  once  of 
William's  weakness  and  of  his  strength.  They  were  jealous  of 
his  love  for  Holland  :  but  they  cordially  sympathised  with  his 
hatred  of  Lewis.  To  their  strong  sentiment  of  nationality  are 
to  be  ascribed  almost  all  those  petty  annoyances  which  made 
the  throne  of  the  Deliverer,  from  his  accession  to  his  death,  so 
uneasy  a  seat.  But  to  the  same  sentiment  it  is  to  be  ascribed 
that  his  throne,  constantly  menaced  and  frequently  shaken,  was 
never  subverted.  For,  much  as  his  people  detested  his  foreign 
favourites,  they  detested  his  foreign  adversaries  still  more.  The 
Dutch  were  Protestants ;  the  French  were  Papists.  The  Dutch 
t  Nottingham  to  William,  July  15, 1090. 


WILLIAM    AND    MARY.  545 

were  regarded  as  selfseeking,  grasping,  overreaching  allies  :  the 
French  were  mortal  enemies.  The  worst  that  could  be  appre- 
hended from  the  Dutch  was  that  they  might  obtain  too  large  a 
share  of  the  patronage  of  the  Crown,  that  they  might  throw  on 
us  too  large  a  part  of  the  burdens  of  the  war,  that  they  might 
obtain  commercial  advantages  at  our  expense.  But  the  French 
would  conquer  us :  the  French  would  enslave  us  :  the  French 
would  inflict  on  us  calamities  such  as  those  which  had  turned 
the  fair  fields  and  cities  of"  the  Palatinate  into  a  desert.  The 
hopgrounds  of  Kent  would  be  as  the  vineyards  of  the  Neckar. 
The  High  Street  of  Oxford  and  the  close  of  Salisbury  would  be 
piled  with  ruins  such  as  those  which  covered  the  spots  where  the 
palaces  and  churches  -of  Heidelberg  and  Manheim  had  once 
stood.  The  parsonage  overshadowed  by  the  old  steeple,  the 
farmhouse  peeping  from  among  beehives  and  appleblossoms,  the 
manorial  hall  embosomed  in  elms,  would  be  given  up  to  a  soldiery 
which  knew  not  what  it  was  to  pity  old  men  or  delicate  women, 
or  sucking  children.  The  words,  "  The  French  are  coming," 
like  a  spell,  quelled  at  once  all  murmurs  about  taxes  and  abuses, 
about  "William's  ungracious  manners  and  Portland's  lucrative 
places,  and  raised  a  spirit  as  high  and  unconquerable  as  had  per- 
vaded, a  hundred  years  before,  the  ranks  which  Elizabeth  re- 
viewed at  Tilbury.  Had  the  army  of  Humieres  landed,  it  would 
assuredly  have  been  withstood  by  every  male  capable  of  bearing 
arms.  Not  only  the  muskets  and  pikes  but  the  scythes  and 
pitchforks  would  have  been  too  few  for  the  hundreds  of  thousands 
who,  forgetting  all  distinction  of  sect  or  faction,  would  have 
risen  up  like  one  man  to  defend  the  English  soil. 

The  immediate  effect  therefore  of  the  disasters  in  the  Channel 
and  in  Flanders  was  to  unite  for  a  moment  the  great  body  of 
the  people.  The  national  antipathy  to  the  Dutch  seemed  to  be 
suspended.  Their  gallant  conduct  in  the  fight  off  Beachy  Head 
was  loudly  applauded.  The  inaction  of  Torrington  was  loudly 
condemned.  London  set  the  example  of  concert  and  of  exer- 
tion. The  irritation  produced  by  the  late  election  at  once  sub- 
sided. All  distinctions  of  party  disappeared.  The  Lord  Mayor 
was  summoned  to  attend  the  Queen.  She  requested  him  to 
VOL.  III.— 35 


546  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

ascertain  as  soon  as  possible  what  the  capital  would  undertake 
to  do  if  the  enemy  should  venture  to  make  a  descent.  He 
called  together  the  representatives  of  the  wards,  conferred  with 
them,  and  returned  to  Whitehall  to  report  that  they  had  unani- 
mously bound  themselves  to  stand  by  the  government  with  life 
and  fortune  ;  that  a  hundred  thousand  pounds  were  ready  to  be 
paid  into  the  Exchequer ;  that  ten  thousand  Londoners,  well 
armed  and  appointed,  were  prepared  to  march  at  an  hour's 
notice ;  and  that  an  additional  force,  consisting  of  six  regiments 
of  foot,  a  strong  regiment  of  horse,  and  a  thousand  dragoons, 
should  be  instantly  raised  without  costing  the  Crown  a  farthing. 
Of  Her  Majesty  the  City  had  nothing  to  ask,  but  that  she  would 
be  pleased  to  set  over  these  troops  officers  in  whom  she  could 
confide.  The  same  spirit  was  shown  in  every  part  of  the  coun- 
try. Though  in  the  southern  counties  the  harvest  was  at  hand, 
the  rustics  repaired  with  unusual  cheerfulness  to  the  musters  of 
the  militia.  The  Jacobite  country  gentlemen,  who  had,  during 
several  months,  been  laying  in  swords  and  carbines  for  the 
insurrection  which  was  to  take  place  as  soon  as  William  was 
gone  and  as  help  arrived  from  France,  now  that  William  was 
gone,  now  that  a  French  invasion  was  hourly  expected,  burned 
their  commissions  signed  by  James,  and  hid  their  arms  behind 
wainscots  or  in  haystacks.  The  malecontents  in  the  towns  were 
insulted  wherever  they  appeared,  and  were  forced  to  shut  them- 
selves up  in  their  houses  from  the  exasperated  populace.* 

Nothing  is  more  interesting  to  those  who  love  to  study  the 
intricacies  of  the  human  heart  than  the  effect  which  the  public 
danger  produced  on  Shrewsbury.  For  a  moment  he  was  again  the 
Shrewsbury  of  1688.  His  nature,  lamentably  unstable,  was  not 
ignoble ;  and  the  thought,  that,  by  standing  foremost  in  the  de- 
fense of  his  country  at  so  perilous  a  crisis,  he  might  repair  his 
great  fault  and  regain  his  own  esteem,  gave  new  energy  to  his 
body  and  his  mind.  He  had  retired  to  Epsom,  in  the  hope  that 
repose  and  pure  air  would  produce  a  salutary  effect  on  his  shat- 
tered frame  and  wounded  spirit.  But  a  few  hours  after  the 

*  Burnet,  ii.  53,  54 ;   Narcissus  Luttrell's  Diary,  July  7,  11,  1690 ;  London 
Gazette,  July  14, 1690. 


WILLIAM   AND    MART.  547 

news  of  the  Battle  of  Beachy  Head  had  arrived,  he  was  at 
Whitehall,  and  had  offered  his  purse  and  sword  to  the  Queen. 
It  had  been  in  contemplation  to  put  the  fleet  under  the  com- 
mand of  some  great  nobleman  with  two  experienced  naval  offi- 
cers to  advise  him.  Shrewsbury  begged  that,  if  such  an  arrange- 
ment were  made,  he  might  be  appointed.  It  concerned,  he  said, 
the  interest  and  the  honour  of  every  man  in  the  kingdom  not  to 
let  the  enemy  ride  victorious  in  the  Channel ;  and  he  would  glad- 
ly risk  his  life  to  retrieve  the  lost  fame  of  the  English  flag.* 

His  offer  was  not  accepted.  Indeed,  the  plan  of  dividing  the 
naval  command  between  a  man  of  quality  who  did  not  know  the 
points  of  the  compass,  and  two  weatherbeaten  old  seamen  who 
had  risen  from  being  cabin  boys  to  be  Admirals,  was  very  wise- 
ly laid  aside.  Active  exertions  were  made  to  prepare  the  allied 
squadrons  for  service.  Nothing  was  omitted  which  could  assuage 
the  natural  resentment  of  the  Dutch.  The  Queen  sent  a  Privy 
Councillor,  charged  with  a  special  mission  to  the  States  General. 
He  was  the  bearer  of  a  letter  to  them  in  which  she  extolled  the 
valour  of  Evertsen's  gallant  squadron.  She  assured  them  that 
their  ships  should  be  repaired  in  the  English  dockyards,  and 
that  the  wounded  Dutchmen  should  be  as  carefully  tended  as 
wounded  Englishmen.  It  was  announced  that  a  strict  inquiry 
would  be  instituted  into  the  causes  of  the  late  disaster  ;  and 
Torrington,  who  indeed  could  not  at  that  moment  have  appeared 
in  public  without  risk  of  being  torn 'in  pieces,  was  sent  to  the 
To  \ver.f 

During  the  three  days  which  followed  the  arrival  of  the 
disastrous  tidings  from  Beachy  Head  the  aspect  of  London  was 
gloomy  and  agitated.  But  on  the  fourth  day  all  was  changed. 
Bells  were  pealing  :  flags  were  flying  :  candles  were  arranged  in 
the  windows  for  an  illumination  :  men  were  eagerly  shaking 
hands  with  each  other  in  the  streets.  A  courier  had  that  morn- 
ing arrived  at  Whitehall  with  great  news  from  Ireland. 

*  Mary  to  "William,  July  3, 10,  1690  ;  Shrewsbury  to  Caermarthen,  July  15. 
t  Mary  to  the  States  General.  July  12;  Burchett's  Memoirs;  An  important 
account  of  some  remarkable  Passages  in  the  Life  of  Arthur,  Earl  of  Torrlugton, 

un. 


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